


Lawful Tease

by stilinskisoul



Series: Derek/Reader ficlets [15]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Attorney Derek Hale, F/M, Lawyer Derek Hale, POV Alternating, POV Derek Hale, POV First Person, POV reader
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-03-03
Updated: 2017-04-29
Packaged: 2018-05-24 13:53:32
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 29,434
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6155788
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stilinskisoul/pseuds/stilinskisoul
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The reader is a Psychology major at a university, and goes to attend her first lesson one day only to see how a huge crowd is hoarding in front of the building of Faculty of Law. Her two friends, Lydia and Allison are there as well, and the two girls make sure that the reader tags along to visit the very first lecture of one Derek Hale, most successful attorney known to mankind. And the reader has her most unforgettable lecture in her entire life.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Teasing Tongues

Today, when I arrive to college, the first thing I notice is how big a crowd is hoarding in front of the building of Faculty of Law. I spot some of my acquaintances among those people too, which makes me confused—what are they doing there? They are supposed to come to Criminal Psychology 201 with me, not Criminal Law 301; apart from them I also spot my two friends on campus—one of them is a Chemistry, the other a History major. It doesn’t take me long to decide whether to approach them or not; I nearly immediately start walking towards them to ask them about this. I clutch my books to my chest as I join in to the crowd squeezing through the door leading into the institute.

“ Hey,” Allison greets me as soon as she glimpses me among the sea of people. When I’m within an arm’s reach, she takes my hand to pull me over to them.

“ What’s going on here?” I ask, taking a look around. I feel like I’m on a festival, waiting for the music band to appear onstage.

“ Haven’t you heard?” Lydia asks. I shake my head.

“ One of the law professors is absent today—as far as I know, he’s gotten sick—so the university asked an attorney to come and be a sub-teacher for the time being.”

“ So?” I ask, still confused. I really can’t get what the whole fuss is about. This is just an attorney. I say as much, to which Allison snorts.

“ Not quite,” she confronts. “He’s one of the most successful attorneys in California; he was even mentioned in a top ten list in a magazine.”

“ Also, let’s not forget that he’s  _ ridiculously _ hot,” Lydia adds, scanning her eyes over the people around us. “Some of us is even ditching classes just to be able to see and listen to him.”

“ Clearly,” I comment with a touch of sarcasm tinting my tone.

They just snicker and I shake my head at them, proceeding to walk away to attend my class, but they grab my arms and pull me in with them. I don’t even have time to protest. It doesn’t take long for us to find the lecture hall, and we take three of the few seats that are still vacant. A constant low buzz of talking engulfs us as we arrange our papers, notebooks and books on the desk. Figuring I won’t need anything related to psychology, I put my book away into my bag.

I take a look around to survey the area—it’s filled to the brim with pupils, some not even a Law major; I’m not one to speak, though, because I have little to nothing to do with law, too.

The murmur is only muted when the door at the bottom opens and the attorney strides in—but as soon as that happens, the conversation instantly dies out completely. I can practically  _ hear _ as the girls’ jaw drops.

The man scans his eyes over the crowd before saying, “I’m happy to see that so many people are interested in law. It’s definitely more than when I was a student myself.” His tone makes it obvious that he’s not at all oblivious to the  _ real _ reason people are here. A round of snicker runs through the lecture hall, and the attorney walks over to the gargantuan blackboard, ever so slowly. Grabbing a chalk, he writes ‘Mr. Hale’ on the surface.

“ My name is Derek Hale,” he continues. I’m sure many of these people have already been aware of that piece of information. “Since this is my first time jumping in as a sub-teacher, one of you may want to clue me in what you’re learning about at the moment.”

“ Homicides,” comes the immediate answer from some girl sitting up-front. Derek’s face and posture suddenly changes; he takes on a tad more rigid stance—a moment later I realize it’s because he situated himself as a teacher. There is a thick book of law behind him, laying in the middle of the desk he’s now leaning against, but he doesn’t take it—he doesn’t need it. He only takes a few seconds to organize his thoughts before beginning to speak.

“ Only a human being can commit a homicide. One does so when unlawfully he kills another human being. The two categories of homicide are murder and manslaughter.” Derek reaches for the collar of his two-piece suit and adjusts it in a swift motion before grabbing the edge of the desk on the two sides of his hips. “A person who accidentally causes a fatal car accident because they lost control on black ice and killed a child is still considered to have committed ‘homicide’, but is not punishable as long as it is proven that it was a truly, tragic accidental car wreck.”

Two girls sitting in the row before me whisper into each other’s ears and giggle.

“ While ‘homicide’ is a word carrying a criminal connotation to the layperson, from a legal standpoint it is merely the ‘unlawful killing of another human being’ and may not the punishable.”

Derek sets off from the desk and begins pacing the platform that is his territory. “A human being commits murder when he commits a homicide with malice aforethought, an ‘endangering state of mind’. There are four ways to satisfy the element of malice.” He approaches the blackboard once more and takes a chalk again. He turns to us. “Does anyone know what are these four ways?”

There is silence in the room. I know the answer—I learnt it for my Criminal Psychology class, but I’m wary of speaking up. Lydia, however, nudges me with her elbow. I shake my head at her, but she aggressively asserts her will as she puts her hand up, saying, “She knows” while pointing at me. My cheeks go red as soon as Derek’s intense pale green gaze settles on me.

“ Oh?” Derek asks. Even from so far, I notice as the corner of his mouth twitches because of a suppressed smile—this is only because I decided to wear my glasses this morning. “Can you tell me what are they?” I swallow the lump from my throat.

“ One is an intent to kill and is the only form of express malice. The remaining are implied malice,” I say. Derek is nodding along as I’m speaking. “One is an intent to inflict great bodily harm. A third is a reckless disregard for the value of human life, sometimes called depraved heart. The last only applies when someone dies during the commission or attempted commission of a felony. It’s often called the felony murder rule and only requires the person to intend to commit the underlying felony.”

“ Exactly,” he agrees. He writes the mentioned four ways on the board, while adding, “Usually, a person only commits first-degree murder when he has express malice. If he has any other type of malice, he usually commits second-degree murder. Does anyone know what the two degrees refer to?” When no one signs they would know, Derek’s eyes find me again. “Do  _ you _ know?”

“ First-degree murder is proven when malice aforethought accompanies ‘willful, deliberate and premeditation’ of the criminal homicide.” Derek can’t help the smile this time, which looks... satisfied, somehow. “Since it’s the harshest degree of murder in terms of sentencing and societal punishment, a first-degree murder must be especially premeditated. Premeditation is the time and capacity to appreciate the enormity of the evil imposed. It involves weighing the pros and cons of ones own actions, and allowing one to think calmly, rationally and thoughtfully. A planned event, with a design to maliciously murder another human being, such as a gang member planning a contract murder or a serial killer outlining the steps to kidnapping his next victim, are committing premeditated acts when, if caught and charged, usually are proven to have committed murder in the first degree.”

“ But?”

“ He shall be granted acquittal if he can prove with a doctor’s report he has some kind of mental disorder. This is called A.C.I. for short.”

“ Very well,” Derek nods. He sets the chalk down and takes off the jacket of his suit, which he hangs on the back of the chair behind the desk. He crosses his impressive arms over his chest, the white material of his button-up shirt adorning the bulging muscles in his upper arms. Without flicking his eyes away from me even for a fraction of a second, he walks closer to the rows of desks. “Can you tell me then what second-degree murder is?”

“ Second-degree murder, initiated by any other crime which satisfies the general malice aforethought whereas ‘malice is merely implied’.” A full-teeth smile splits his attractive features. Derek turns around to approach the blackboard again, however, his eyes stay on me for as long as they can, turning his head along with his body in the last second.

“ Voluntary manslaughter is the lesser charge of homicide, lesser than murder. American society has come to understand how a loss of self-control, brought about through emotional states, can push a person toward murder when it is not rationally intended.” He writes ‘self-control’ on the board before going on. “Voluntary manslaughter, although punishable, is an intentional, malicious form of homicide that involves certain elements to justify this lesser charge. The ‘Heat of Passion’ and ‘Cooling off Period’ are subjective justifications that are argued in court, by us attorneys, based on circumstantial evidence and establishment of motives where proof of a crime may not be fully ascertained.”

“ Can you tell us an example?” asks a girl. Derek leans against the edge of his desk once more, a hand fixing his scarlet tie.

“ In one of my cases, the man walked into his bedroom and saw his wife having sex with another male, who happened to be his lifelong rival, and he reacted harshly; he grabbed a nearby gun and killed both of them within a matter of minutes.”

There is silence in the room for a while, which is broken by the chalk knocking against the hard surface of the board. Derek is writing, ‘Does the defendant have legally adequate provocation to have lost control?’, then comments, “This is the most important question that an attorney has to ask themselves. And remember: insulting words alone cannot justify legally adequate provocation.”

“ What does, then?” comes from the back of the lecture hall, from a guy.

“ Think about reasonably adequate provocation in terms of a stressful trigger to a loss of self-control,” Derek answers. “According to the law, insulting words, or words alone, cannot justify a trigger of criminal homicide. Your lover cannot all you a name, thereby making you justified in killing them. The legally adequate provocation must go beyond insulting words to events, situations and circumstances that surprise the defendant and trigger them to lose any sort of reasonableness without time to think through the consequences nor weigh the pros and cons.”

“ What will the jury do then?” the guy asks.

“ In this way, a court may establish a defendant, originally charged with second-degree murder, to have been legally adequately provoked to commit the unlawful act of killing another human being making his crime less punishable, but still punishable. Therefore, voluntary manslaughter results in a lesser charge than murder, but more than involuntary manslaughter.”

“ How is it determined?”

“ A psychologist is asked to attend the court to tell whether the testimony is adequate or not. But that’s none of your problem, that’s why we have Psychology majors here after all,” he adds, with just a tad of irony in his voice. I figure it’s because he suspects there are Psychology majors here as well—and he’s right.

“ On involuntary manslaughter,” he says, getting back to the original subject. “Although it is unintentional, the law requires proof beyond a reasonable doubt of some form of malfeasance or misfeasance. Malfeasance is considered to be any dangerous, unlawful act—felony—, misfeasance includes any act, even lawful, that is criminally negligent—misdemeanour.”

“ Back to the acquittals,” another guy chimes in. Derek makes a sweeping motion with his hand, indicating for the pupil to keep talking. “A man with more personalities would be convicted?”

“ Schizophrenia is a mental disorder, so they would obviously not be,” a girl interjects. This time, I speak up without a second thought.

“ The discussion is about DPD, not schizophrenia,” I comment, making Derek smile that half-smile again that has only been present on his face when I spoke up. I can feel his gaze burning into my skin as I talk. “Schizophrenia is about being delusional and seeing and hearing things that are not there. Dissociative Personality Disorder is the name of the disease you are looking for.”

“ What are you, a Psychology major?” she barks back at me. Quickly thinking of the consequences if I say the truth, I opt to lie.

“ No, I just like to read. It’s common knowledge, so no one has to be a psychologist to be able to tell the two apart.”

After then, instead of arguing with me some more, she rather chooses to hunch to make herself as small as possible. Derek has tilted his head forwards at some point to try and hide his amused smirk. Once his expression is schooled, he speaks.

“ With a psychologist’s official report, he wouldn’t be arrested,” Derek answers. “but sentenced to an asylum.”

He checks his watch then, announcing that the course is over for today. Every single person stands nearly at the same time to try and leave, with some exceptions who want to stay to talk to Derek. Although I’m not among them, I end up being the only one who has that privilege—because I’m the only one Derek beckons over to himself. He startles not only me, but most of the girls as well.

I approach him, weaving my way through the sea of people that’s going in the opposite direction as me on the stairs. Once in front of him, Derek ushers me to turn around, our backs facing the rows of seats.

“ Part of my job is about figuring other people out,” is what he decides to open with, and I immediately have an idea of what is coming next. However, I only nod to his statement. Derek continues, “My level of success is also highly dependent on how well I can spot a lie.”

“ Yes,” I say, going for appearing as casual as possible.

“ You are not a Law major, are you?” I bite the inside of my mouth, which seems to be enough for Derek as an answer. “I’m just curious how you knew all those despite you’re not learning law.”

I shrug easily as I say simply, “I already said so; I like to read.”

And with that, I leave him alone at the lecture hall.

**Derek POV**

The next time I go to give a lecture, I’m astonished to find that I’m missing that girl from yesterday. And what surprises me even more is that I experience something I would never have thought I would ever encounter—being bored with law.

What has this girl done to me?


	2. Patience breeds Rose

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Derek's perfect plan to meet the reader again.

I double check myself in the mirror – am I easy to notice? Am I attracting attention too much? Is my outfit casual enough? Is the baseball cap too much? Do I still look like myself _too much_?

I exhale an exasperated breath as I just give up on it entirely and decide my facade is now perfect, and whoever spots me will have a lucky day. I just need to go back there and find out that girl’s name, otherwise my mind won’t seem to be able to stop buzzing. The thought of that unknown girl has been living in my head vividly, so much in fact that it’s this close to distract me from my job – last time I nearly lost a case because my brain was in the clouds somewhere, whereas I had to give a quick response to kill the side of the protection party once and for all.

Obviously, I couldn't allow that risk in my life.

This is how I ended up here, standing in my bedroom in front of the huge mirror that stretches next to my wardrobe, sporting a set of black tracksuit, a baseball cap and sunglasses. I also dug out a messenger bag from the bottom of my wardrobe, which I filled with a bottle of water, some sandwiches, pens and a notebook.

My biggest issue right now is finding out what is her major – I don’t even know _that_ , only that I can rule out law from the list of possibilities. I spent half of my nights awake, mind running a mile a minute to try and narrow it down to the most likely choice, and I ended up with three; anthropology, history and psychology, respectively.

However, I’m going to have to spend a tremendous amount of time on campus if I want to bump into her again. Besides, I don’t even know when she has classes, which further reduces my chances of meeting her anytime soon.

I jump into my sports shoes and leave for the institute. I drive there with my Camaro, but I deliberately park it a couple streets away. I approach the campus casually, with a stance that conveys I couldn’t care less about anything in the world, which is to conceal my actual state – namely being insanely worked up and frustrated for still not knowing who that girl was.

I don’t even know what got me in her in the first place, I only realized at some point that I can’t get her out of my head no matter how hard I’m trying.

As more and more people start to gradually surround me, I automatically tilt my head lower to hide my face behind the cap. To make sure it’s covering my face nice and fine, I reach up to tug it a tad lower.

I can still remember the girl who informed me during my lecture that _my girl_ knows the answer to my question, and I have a vague picture of the third one who seemed to belong in their clique, too. So all in all, that leaves me with a total of three people to look for – and although it’s not much, it still increases my chances of getting to Her.

I figure my best bet is to sit on a bench where I can keep an eye on most of the campus, so I wander around until I find the best spot. There, I drop down and pull out my phone from my pocket, skimming through my agenda once more.

. o O o .

One and a half week passes without any progress. That is, in regards to finding my girl – as for my job, I’m starting to regain my cool head in the court. I keep winning my cases, yet I can’t seem to get a grip of my personal life.

That is, until today.

I’m about to pull my book out of my messenger bag when I notice the redhead girl from my first lecture. I follow her with my eyes, then my mind catches up and I bolt up from the bench quickly, shouldering my bag and adjusting it, so it’s conveniently tucked to my back.

I creep closer to her in a slow jog, making sure I’m able to keep up with her without being spotted. The third girl from their group joins her – I check which buildings they came from; one from the Faculty of History, the other from the Faculty of Chemistry.

I bless all the Gods in Heaven for sending them in my way.

Following them, I hide my face as best as I can without losing the girls from my sight.

Just as I anticipate it, they soon meet up with Her, too.

The sunbeams that break through the leafs of the tall trees light up her face beautifully, and the soft breeze brushes her hair to lay over her chest, framing her face which is now lacking her glasses.

I shake myself awake.

I follow them subtly over to the cafeteria, where they all buy a cup of coffee, then wander around for a while until their next lecture starts. I stalk closer to them a bit more, hence I can hear some of their spoken words. This is how I get to know when will she be free again – also her name.

I follow her to the building where she’s going to attend her lesson – the Faculty of Psychology.

I go back to the Camaro to wait for her there. To kill the time, I check the timetable of Psychology majors. They have Criminal Psychology, which can be a possible explanation why she knew all those law-related things.

I set an alarm for myself to make sure I won’t fail to go back in time. Awhile, I work on my current case; I even get an incoming call from my secretary, reminding me to check on the evidences I’ve gathered and that I have a meeting with the coroner two days from now. While still on the phone, I glance at the time.

“Look,” I tell her. “I gotta go now, but I’ll catch up with you later.”

“Okay,” comes Erica’s response. “Take care.”

Without wishing her the same, I end the call, adjust the baseball cap and sunglasses on my head, then get out of the car and jog back to campus. I swat the small voice in the back of my mind, accusing me of stalker behaviour, and just focus on the fact that I finally get to meet her once more.

I only have to wait around for four minutes until I glimpse her again.

Now that she’s here, I realize there is one thing I haven’t planned out yet – which is probably the most essential component of my plot; what I will tell her once we’re finally face to face.

I shrug, figuring I’ll come up with something on the fly, but I come to a halt when I notice a guy stepping next to her. For some unknown reason, anger washer over my entire being, and my fingers curl into two tight fists.

I clench my jaw when he wraps an arm around her shoulders, pulling her in as they laugh together at something.

Driven by a sudden wave of possessive fury, I take off towards them, now having a plot in mind of what will happen between us, including the story I’m going to tell her for why I’m here at the moment. The fact that they are walking towards the building of the Faculty of Law only aids my idea. I increase my pace, getting closer and closer to them, until eventually I bump into the guy’s shoulder.

“Hey, dude, excuse you,” he snaps. I roll my eyes behind the dark lenses of my glasses before turning around.

“I’m in a hurry, so –” I cut off the rest of my sentence, acting like I’m only noticing the girl on his side now. I do my best to convey surprise. “Oh,” I say, allowing an attractive half smile to tug up the corner of my mouth. “Nice to see you again. I’ve been missing you from classes.”

“I figured I should attend my own classes instead. I thought we asserted I’m not a Law major already,” she retorts, bringing back the soft, warm fuzzy feeling into my chest I’ve felt during my first lecture only.

“I figured your undying curiosity would coax you back to the classes,” I reply, which earns me a genuine smile from her.

I only realize the silence between us that we spend with grinning stupidly, her looking at the ground shyly and me fixing her face still, when the obnoxious guy clears his throat.

“So, what brings you around?” he asks.

“I left a folder in the office, and I need it for my hearing this afternoon.”

“Well, good luck with it,” she says.

“With finding the folder or the court?”

“I guess you only need luck for the former, so,” she shrugs. It makes me chuckle. I love how she can tease me and still be adorable about it.

“Should I expect you back to my lectures, or was that a one time only occasion?”

“I thought only Law majors are welcome there.”

“You know, the sad thing about them is that they don’t seem to enjoy reading as much as you do,” I explain, which isn’t an entire lie – I could hardly find anyone else with whom I could have such a dynamical conversation as I did with her.

After a brief consideration, she smiles at me with a tad foxiness in her features, promising, “I’ll see what I can do about it.”


	3. Stinging Snark

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The reader grants Derek's wish.

After meeting Derek, I was so surprised and flustered that no matter how hard I tried, I just  _ couldn't _ focus on what Matt was saying or doing any more. Following the incident, he walked me to the dorms, then we said goodbye to each other and I spent the rest of my afternoon studying.

A couple days passed since then, and this morning, I check the timetable of the courses where Derek is the sub-teacher, and eventually I find a lesson that is kept when I normally have a free period, so I opt to revisit his lecture then. I’m extremely self-conscious about my looks today as I critically survey myself in the mirror. For some reason, I find that nothing seems to fit me perfectly, even though I’ve changed my outfit four times already.

In the end, I choose to go for the most casual look that I can muster, wearing a pair of jeans, a nice tank top and a cardigan. As for my hair, I opt to leave it as it is, I only brush it to make it look more decent. I don’t want Derek to think so high of himself – he’s not as special as he might like to think he is, so just because he bats his eyelashes, I won’t be all over the floor instantly.

No. I’m an independent woman, and the only reason I’m going back to his lesson is that I can tease him some more this way, because I wouldn’t meet him otherwise.

Also, I’ve never quite fancied people like Derek – they all seem cocky and self-absorbed, blinded by their success, thus thinking high of themselves and disrespect others. If Derek can convince me of the opposite about him, I will quit being so snarky and switch for a tad nicer attitude – probably.

I start off attending my own classes before the free period. My heart flutters at the thought of seeing Derek within the next half hour, but I will my raging excitement to settle. This is just Derek. Just an attorney. Just a professor, for the time being.

Since my usual routine includes my favourite café a couple streets away from campus, I forgot to pack food for myself before leaving this morning – I only realized this when my stomach started growling a while ago, and I couldn't find anything to eat.

Of course, this means I’m going to be late for Derek’s class, but his lesson is not as important as my well-being. I won’t starve myself for him.

I buy a bagel and a cup of hot chocolate that I take back with myself to college, then rush to the Faculty of Law to the lecture hall where Derek has already started his lesson. I take a few deep breaths in front of the door to settle myself and look less like I was in a hurry coming here, then push it open and enter the room.

The familiar, low voice softly engulfs my ears as he’s talking. The knocking of the chalk against hard board is accompanying his voice, however, instead of complementing the sounds with a visual addition, my priority is finding a place where I can sit first. I scan the hall for a vacant seat, but Derek’s lessons are still popular among students from all majors.

There are literally no empty seats left.

I’m just about to turn around to leave when Derek beats me to it, and his gaze latches on to me. That feeling of being flustered from a few days ago is back in a fraction of a second, and I awkwardly shift my weight from one leg to another, shuffling my shoes on the floor. My fingers start drumming against the bottom of the paper cup I’m frantically holding on to, like that is my final lifeline that keeps me sane and upright. I swallow as I notice the corner of his mouth twitching briefly. Apparently he’s been watching me too long, because from the corner of my eyes I notice some of the pupils glancing back to see what is so interesting for Derek at the back.

On instinct, I try to shrink my shoulders to look as small as possible, mentally wishing I had Harry Potter’s cloak of invisibility on me.

Derek looks away.

“ As I was saying, there is a term called  _ Non compos mentis _ . Does anyone know what this means?” No one speaks, so Derek’s eyes find me again, and he instantly loses all my gratitude I gave him a moment ago for ignoring me. “Do  _ you _ know it, maybe? You were late for my class, so,” he says, teasing. “I assume it’s because you know everything about today’s topic.”

“ It means ‘not of sound mind’,” I answer. Derek smiles that half-smile at me, the one that is shared only between the two of us – the one that is reserved personally for me. It gives me the strength to retort back. “Do you need me to translate it word by word too, or was my answer satisfying enough for you?”

“ To be honest, I was expecting a more...  _ extensive _ answer from you,” he replies, making an elegant sweeping motion with his hand, indicating for me to keep talking. The word ‘you’ feels velvety smooth on his tongue as it rolls off of it, albeit it is at least partially, if not entirely, to tease me.

“‘ Non’ means ‘not’,” I start, deliberately maintaining eye contact with him, ignoring the other students who are starting to all look at me instead of Derek. I’m not letting him win this. “‘ compos ’ means ‘having command’ and ‘ mentis ’ means ‘of mind’. It’s the direct opposite of ‘ Compos mentis ’, which is the Latin term for ‘of sound mind’.”

“ Very good,” he nods approvingly, finally letting me off the hook – that is, for now. I can feel it in my very  _ bones _ that this is far from over yet.

Now, I have the chance to survey my surroundings – I notice the term ‘mens rea’ on the blackboard, but what catches my eye more is the expanse of skin on display; Derek has the sleeves of his button-up shirt rolled to his elbows, showing his sinewy forearms and his expensive-looking watch. He’s wearing a two-piece suit like he did the last time I was here, the jacket of it hanging on the back of his chair and him wearing the vest only.

Derek fixes his watch as he puts one leg on the chair, leaning over the table to check on a spread out paper in front of him – presumably it’s the syllabus, because one thing I know about Derek is that he definitely does  _ not _ need any kind of help to be able to talk about law. Hell, he probably even knows the numbers of the paragraphs by heart, too.

He pushes himself off a moment later, approaching the board again and writing ‘NGRI’ on it. He turns, asking, “Anyone knows what this means?”

“ Not guilty by reason of insanity,” comes the answer from a girl to the right. Derek’s eyes flash at her. Clearly she wants Derek to notice her too, and give her that satisfied look he’s only given to me so far. Self-satisfaction is pouring off of her, but it’s ruined when Derek says, “That’s a perfect answer,” he nods approvingly, making the girl grin widely. “But I’d much rather like it if you knew that without checking it in your book beforehand.”

The girl blushes so hard even the tips of her ears go red. They nearly match the colour of Derek’s scarlet tie that he adjusts now, glancing at me for a fraction of a second before migrating back to the board.

“ Have you ever had a case with a mentally ill defendant?” asks a guy from the third row.

“ Yes,” Derek answers. “More than one times.”

“ Can you tell us about the one that had the biggest impression on you?” he asks. Derek contemplates his choices before saying, “Sure.”

“ It was among my first cases,” he starts. “The man who is now a patient at an institute a couple states away was convinced that there were voices telling him to kill his relatives, because they sold their souls for the devil and were working against him. The voices in his mind told him that by murdering them, he purifies their souls, which is why he committed ritual homicides.”

“ So what was the final judgement? By this, I mean what the official psychological report was.”

“ He was diagnosed with schizophrenia,” Derek supplies. “But I’m no psychologist, so if you are so invested in the work of people’s minds, you are probably taking the wrong course.”

A round of snicker washes over the lecture hall, but his comment essentially makes me develop a bitter taste in my mouth. I’m on the wrong course, too.

“ Does anyone know what is the opposite of NGRI?” Derek asks, then adds, “Without checking the answer in your books first, please.” The last sentence earns him another chuckle from the students. Since he’s still standing by the board, he writes ‘GBMI’. As he turns to see if anyone knows what the acronym stands for, he’s faced with clueless expressions. His eyes find me once more. He doesn’t even have to ask before I’m speaking.

“ Guilty but mentally ill,” I answer with just a touch of uncertainty in my voice. I have never heard of these, I’m only guessing what GBMI is based on what Derek said about it being the opposite of NGRI.

“ Exactly,” he nods, grabbing the side of the blackboard to toss it upwards. It switches places with an empty one, so Derek has space to write again. “The notion of temporary insanity argues whether the defendant was insane at all, but is now sane. It’s also commonly used as a defence for crimes of passion. But as I said before, this is not a psychological course, and it’s not our division to tell whether the defendant’s state of mind is normal or abnormal. Our job is to tell apart competency and criminal responsibility.

“ The issue of competency is whether a defendant is able to adequately assist his attorney in preparing a defence, make informed decisions about trial strategy and whether or not to plead guilty or accept a plea agreement. Competency largely deals with the defendant’s present condition, while criminal responsibility addresses the condition at the time the crime was committed.”

Derek starts pacing, folding his hands behind his hips as he’s walking around.

“ A trial in which the insanity defence is invoked typically involves the testimony of psychiatrists or psychologists who will, as expert witnesses, present opinions on the defendant’s state of mind at the time of the offence.” As he speaks, he looks at me more than one time, like he couldn't help it. It further tightens my gullet, which has been preventing me from drinking my hot chocolate – which has gone cold by now.

“ Therefore, a person whose mental disorder is not in dispute is determined to be sane if the court decides that despite a “mental illness” the defendant was responsible for the acts committed and will be treated in court as a normal defendant. If the person has a mental illness and it is determined that the mental illness interfered with the person’s ability to determine right from wrong, and other associated criteria a jurisdiction may have, and if the person is willing to plead guilty or is proven guilty in a court of law, some jurisdictions have an alternative option known as GBMI verdict. The GBMI verdict is available as an alternative to, rather than in lieu of, NGRI verdict. In 1975, Michigan was the first state to create a GBMI verdict, after two prisoners released after being found in NGRI committed violent crimes within a year of release, one raping two women and the other killing his wife.”

There is brief silence before Derek suggests, “At home, you may want to check what the Twinkie Defence is by way of chilling between two study sessions. The lesson is over for today.”

Hearing that, I proceed to leave, but I notice Derek watching me intently, making my feet root into the ground. I couldn't leave now even if I wanted to, maybe not even if there was fire burning – not until Derek let go of my gaze on his own. With a hardly noticeable jerk of his head, he indicates I stay behind and go talk to him – again.

It takes nearly five minutes until the entire hall is devoid of all students except for me, at which time, Derek pulls his hand out of the pocket of his pants and beckons me down to him. I feel extremely self-conscious with only the two of us, all alone.

“ So,” he begins, stepping away from the boards after having wiped his writing off of them with the sponge. He approaches me, coming too close for me to feel comfortable. I can even smell the spicy cologne he sprayed himself with. “You came.”

I shrug, swallowing my giddiness back. I try to ignore how his lean muscles are flexing under his skin in his forearms that he has folded over his chest.

“ Oh, don’t be so full of yourself, big guy. I got a free period, I wouldn’t be here otherwise,” I say, shrugging, as though not having a care in the world.

“ I’m nonetheless flattered you devoted your free time to my lesson, then,” he retorts with a wicked smirk.

“ You’re welcome,” I nod, managing to sustain a straight face. “So I see you’re covering Insanity Defence with them now?”

“ Yes, although this was just a little part of it. Like I said during my lecture, I’m no expert, so you may want to keep tagging along to correct me when I get something wrong about psychological matters.”

“ As much as I want to do that, I don’t really like crowded places.”

“ I’ll let you sit at my desk if you must,” he replies immediately, and for a moment, I consider whether he was serious or not – his voice says he’s just teasing, but according to his gestures and body language, he wants just that. My heart makes a frantic contraction at the implied promise in his words. “You’re practically my TA.”

“ Oh, I’m far from that,” I chuckle. “Besides, you asserted quite a bit of times today that whoever is interested in how the mind operates should quit visiting your classes.”

“ That was to remind everyone who is not a Law major to go back to their own courses,” he hedges, honest. Besides, he’s completely right about it; the girls shouldn’t be coming here merely because of him – they still have their own responsibilities after all. I avert my eyes from his, hence noticing the white patches of chalk dust on his tie.

“ Uh, you have –” I say, nodding towards the scarlet material. His brows knit together in confusion.

“ What?”

“ Just... some, um,” I keep stuttering. Instead of mortifying myself some more for not being able to speak properly, I set the cup down on his desk and reach for his tie, gripping it firmly. It’s not until Derek unconsciously leans closer to me that I realize what this must have looked like to him – he thought I wanted to reel him in for a kiss, I’m sure about that.

I can’t help my blush – especially when I glance back up at his face and notice his darkened, hooded eyes skimming through my face. My mouth falls open. The warm breaths he exhales brush over my skin, making me shiver modestly, Derek taking a step towards me, me backing off from him, inevitably ending up tucked between the edge of the desk and Derek’s body, heart racing in my ribcage like a trapped little bird’s. I’m this close to hyperventilating.

The musky scent of him envelops me, and my mind is spinning with a myriad of buzzing thoughts. I hardly notice as his broad, calloused palms slide to my hips, cupping the curve of them neatly, burning my skin through my clothes. I’m still clutching his tie, which is now askew for me having pulled most of it out from between his vest and shirt.

I can’t find it in me to avert my eyes from his now; the black void in the middle of his irises is blown wide, effectively entrancing me. I feel a sudden desire to touch my fingertips to his five o’clock shadow, and my free hand proceeds to do just that, but then a phone goes off.

We are both startled away from each other. Derek clears his throat as he walks over to the chair to get his cell out of his jacket.

“ Hale,” he says simply, voice ragged, avoiding looking at me. He pointedly stays behind the chair, presumably to hide his slight bulge from me, but it’s too late – I’ve already noticed it.

A couple moments later, I shake myself awake from my haze. As soon as that happens, I bolt out of the lecture hall without a second thought, completely forgetting about my hot chocolate.


	4. Downpour

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A downpour can have its perks.

I have to admit that the last lesson with her was a disaster. She was smart and quirky as always, cute in her own way, looked gorgeous and enticing – too much, even.

Initially, I thought that if I manage to find her and figure out her identity, I’ll be able to finally forget about her.

Oh, how wrong I was.

Now, my mind won’t quit bombarding me with  _ any _ kind of thought that is relatable to her – and what’s worse, those thoughts now include some which I would much rather ignore for my and her sake.

This is my last lecture for today, and I can’t help perking up whenever that damn door opens or closes and someone either leaves or arrives. It takes me an extra dose of willpower to be able to focus on what I’m talking about. Apparently she’s still giving me hardship teaching, although now my situation has improved so I don’t get bored when there is no one to answer me or come up with a witty response to my questions.

After the class ends, and I explain some things to pupils who come to me to ask about the  _ actual curriculum _ and not my personal life, I head to the absent professor’s office. I fall into the chair with an exasperated sigh and stare out of the window, which shows the entrance of the building of Faculty of Law.

My eyes wander on the outdoors, scanning the students and secretly wishing she would show up – I haven’t seen her for over a week, and it’s killing me. I’m not the type to leave things unresolved, the tension we have between us just further adding to my frustration. Even if we don’t talk to each other ever again, I still want to explain my demeanour to her. My fingers curl into firm fists as I recall the way my body acted on its own in such a close proximity to her.

Still...

Her scent engulfed me, the apparent smoothness of her lips entranced me, the soft noise she made when her butt hit the edge of the desk, the warmth of her body under my palms, the way she stared into my eyes, her pupils dilated, looking just barely scared and more like she was  _ dying _ for it at least as much as me...

I stand with a groan. I have to keep my thoughts away from her, otherwise I’m going to go  _ nuts _ .

I snatch my phone from the desk and dial Erica’s number to tell her to give me a heads-up about my agenda. I don’t need it, I know I only have to attend one dinner tonight with the judge and the coroner of my latest case, but I need a freaking distraction.

. o O o .

On Tuesday next week, I deliberately go to the Faculty of Psychology. I’ve been waiting impatiently to finally have a chance to talk to her, not wanting her to think I’m the kind of guy who takes advantage of women. I want –  _ need _ – her to know that.

During the past days, I made a little research to find out her full name and which semester she’s taking at the moment. There were a total of seven (Y/N)s in the student database of the Psychology department. Thankfully, they have pictures attached to the profiles of the pupils, so it wasn’t hard to find her among the seven records. This way I also have access to her timetable, which makes it a thousand times easier for me to bump into her again  _ accidentally _ on the corridors of the university. My mind is accusing me on end of stalker behaviour, but I justify it with the fact that I have no other choice if I want to have a last talk with her.

Right now, I’m in the building of her faculty. It doesn’t take too long for me to glimpse her among the sea of people. I start walking towards her, but she notices me, too – and then she turns and hurtles her way through the crowd, heading in the opposite direction, practically escaping from me. It equally hurts and infuriates me.

I accelerate my steps to try and come level with her, but the people around me don’t make it easy for me – especially because a girl stops me by grabbing my arm.

“ Are you Derek Hale?” she asks, awed. I’m stretching and craning my neck to find her again, but no matter how hard I try, I can’t seem to spot her. I look back at the girl who made me stop, and judging by the puzzled expression her face morphs into, my fury is showing on my face.

. o O o .

I get to meet her nearly two weeks later. There’s a downpour washing over the town – it’s been raining for about twenty minutes, the water flowing on the streets like shallow rivers, and occasionally the drops are so thick and raging that they look like a waving transparent curtain. I’m on my way out of the institute, about to head home to go through the files of my case once more for tomorrow’s hearing, when I glimpse someone running on the street. I wouldn’t spare two glances at the girl if her figure wasn’t so familiar.

I jerk to a halt with my Camaro.

For several seconds, only the wiper arms commuting back and forth on the windshield are the only things that move in the car, otherwise I feel like time has stopped for me. I shake myself awake, then start my car again, slowly approaching her. I roll down the window on the right so that I can talk to her.

“ Hey,” I say, hoping she will hear my voice over the rain. Her walking falters and she turns to see who called out. As soon as her eyes land on me, she continues on her way like she didn’t even see me. However, I don’t budge, and keep following her with the car slowly. “You’re soaking wet.”

“ Very perceptive of you,” she spits back. I ignore the disdain in her tone.

“ Hop in, I’ll give you a ride home,” I offer. I don’t miss the way her body spasms, contemplating it momentarily. She still refuses, though.

“ I’ll deal, but thanks,” she says sternly. I won’t have it.

“ You’re going to catch a cold,” I point out, making her stop finally. “And your clothes are see-through now.” Even the tips of her ears go red, and I have to suppress my smile at the sight. I unlock the door for her, and she hops in, letting an exasperated sigh escape from her lips. No wonder why I win all of my cases – I always know what to say.

“ Okay, you won,” she says, avoiding looking at me, presumably because she’s overly self-conscious about her bra being available. I take off from the sidewalk, maintaining a slow pace on the wet pavement. “Thank you,” she says eventually, hardly audible.

“ You’re welcome,” I nod, turning to the left towards the crossroads. Once there, I stop at the red lamp. I can’t help but my eyes travel over to her body, skin still flushed with pearls of raindrops flowing down, collecting in the dip under her neck, the tee she’s wearing sticking to her collarbones and general shape, the dripping material leaving nothing to the imagination – it not only allows me to see her navel, but also every single part of the lace that adorns her lingerie. Her heart is beating wildly.

My mouth falls open, and I completely forget about where I am until someone honks behind me impatiently. I clear my throat, taking off from there. Save for the heavy knocking on the exterior of my Camaro, there is silence between us; it’s only broken when I speak up.

“ So,” I begin, feeling abruptly awkward. She turns away from the window to look in my general direction, albeit never quite finding my face, not daring to glance higher than my shoulders. “I’ve been meaning to talk to you.”

She nods, then asks, “About?” like she could possibly be clueless of that.

“ About what happened after my latest lecture.” Her cheeks heat up once more. “I want you to know that...” I contemplate what to say. I don’t want her to think I find her unattractive or that I want to take advantage of her. How does one convey they temporarily lost control of themselves and just gave in to their desires? So much for the ‘not wanting to take advantage’ part of my speech... I take a deep breath to ground myself. I try again. “I want you to know that I don’t normally do this. I don’t take advantage of women.”

She nods in acknowledgement.

“ Okay,” is all she replies with. It tenses me up more, and my knuckles go white as I grip the stirring wheel. She doesn’t push to ask why it happened then, which I’m grateful for.

“ You started avoiding me altogether,” I continue.

“ Yes, I’ve – I’ve been busy lately,” she explains. To my biggest relief, she asks, “And how are your lectures?”

“ Fine,” I answer, easing up a bit, my muscles uncoiling as the rigid tension seeps out of them a tad. “But they are not nearly as interesting compared to the ones where I had someone to talk to.”

She involuntarily smiles at that, lifting my spirits. “What happened to the professor, though? He seems to be absent a lot.”

“ He was involved in an accident, and among many bones, even his jaw got broken.”

“ Wow,” she says, and I couldn’t agree more.

After a long debate with myself, I end up asking, “May I buy you another hot chocolate?” She gives me an equally surprised and confused look, so I proceed to explain. “You left yours on the desk.”

“ Oh,” she bites her lip. Tearing my eyes away from her mouth, I force myself to check the rearview mirror instead. My nervousness wells up in me again as I’m waiting for her answer. Maybe I shouldn’t have asked, maybe it was too much and I ruined all my chances to – “All right,” she says finally. It’s a near call that a wide grin stretches to my face, but I manage to school my features before that could happen.

I’m already opening my mouth to say something else, but my phone goes off. I take my hand away from the clutch to hold it out towards her as I say, “Could you give it to me? It’s in the pocket of my suit.” I hung it on the back of the passenger seat after sitting in – it got a bit wet in the short time between closing my umbrella and jumping in.

(Y/N) moves to feel for the device, then hands it over to me without sparing a glance at the caller ID. Her fingers are still cold when they brush against my skin, making me want to warm her up. I keep watching her as she’s looking through the window on the side, but then I tear my eyes away from her to pay attention to driving. I accept the call.

“ Hale,” I say, tone monotone and business-like.

“ Did I leave my folder at yours yesterday? I need it for the court in half an hour. Can I go over to get it?”

“ Sure,” I answer, ending the call. I look over at (Y/N) again. “I have to go home. Someone left his papers at mine, and he needs them in thirty. That okay?”

(Y/N) nods.

So I’m taking her to my flat, and that’s that. And I’m not freaking out over it.


	5. Your Tie is Askew

I take a turn to the right, now heading for my flat. I arrive there within five minutes. I tell (Y/N) to wait, and I go around the Camaro to open the door for her, making sure she’s immediately under the umbrella with me. She takes my suit with her, then we go inside. I live in a penthouse, so we go to the highest floor with the elevator after I type in the password. When I glance at (Y/N), I can clearly see the nervousness that’s pouring off of her. I make a gesture towards the flat when the doors slide open.

I lead (Y/N) to the living-room, then go to check where the folder is. It doesn’t take me long to find it in my study. I bring it with me to where (Y/N) is, then I take off to snatch some clothes for her. I hand them over to her, and instruct her to the bathroom where she can change.

Just as she disappears, the elevator doors open again and my visitor strides in.

“ Derek,” he says by way of greeting me.

“ Peter,” I reply, equally prim, approaching the folder and taking it from where I put it on the coffee table. “I found it.”

“ Thanks,” he says, sliding it into his briefcase. “How was your day at the university?”

“ Aren’t you supposed to be in a hurry?” I ask pointedly, but he just whisks at me.

“ I have fifteen more minutes. I’ll get to the jury in seven, at most,” he says, voice chatty. “Can’t I be concerned with the life of my nephew?”

There are faint noises coming from the bathroom, signing me that (Y/N) is ready changing. Peter’s lips curl into a devilish smirk.

“ Are you not alone?” I purse my lips into a tight, thin line and my nostrils flare. Peter’s wicked half-smile widens. When (Y/N) appears, she reminds me of a prey with two wolves capturing her. “Oh?” Peter practically singsongs, looking at me, clearly amused. “I haven’t seen a woman here in  _ years _ . What happened?” his eyes commute between us, his face lighting up as he puts two and two together. “So  _ this _ is why you were reluctant to talk about the university. Clearly I came at the wrong time,” he adds, his comment stinging.

“ I think it’s high-time you left,” I declare, deliberately glancing at my watch. “What if there’s a traffic jam somewhere along the way? It would be a shame if the attorney were late for the hearing, don’t you agree?” Peter rolls his eyes at me.

“ Is GPS an unknown concept to you? What century are you living in?” Peter asks sassily. I’m not letting him have the upper hand here, though.

“ That was a euphemism for ‘get out’,” I shoot back, making Peter smirk.

“ All right, I get it,” he says, smoothing his hand over his perfectly brushed and waxed hair. “I’m leaving you two alone so you can do your...  _ thing _ .” Peter walks over to (Y/N) to tell her something in a hushed tone. He even winks at (Y/N), deepening her blush and making me furious.

“ Enough,” I snap sternly. Peter has never been good at obedience, though. “Your time’s up.”

Peter maintains eye contact with (Y/N) before adjusting his expensive silver coloured suit and making a beeline for the elevator.

He hardly leaves before I proceed to apologize for his demeanour.

“ I’m sorry about him,” I say genuinely. “That was Peter Hale, my uncle. He has a certain... attitude to him. I –”

“ It’s okay,” (Y/N) interrupts, smiling shyly at me. “It’s not your fault.”

My shoulders slump as the tension leaves my frame. I give her a quick once-over – my T-shirt and sweatpants are both oversized, the latter pooling at her ankles, while the former’s V-shaped collar is riding low on her chest. I realize with a start that she’s no longer wearing her bra. I have to swallow hard to rid my gullet of the lump.

“ Want anything?” I ask, gesturing in the general direction of the kitchen. She bites her lip in contemplation.

“ That hot chocolate?” she asks, a bit playful. I chuckle, shaking my head.

“ I don’t have anything at home to make one for you,” I explain. “How about a cappuccino, though? I have a really nice coffee maker.” She grins at me, finally eased up around me again.

“ Sounds perfect, thank you.” I nod with a smile on my lips, turning to go to the kitchen, but she touches my forearm, stopping me. Since I have the sleeves of my button-up shirt rolled up, our skins come into contact, and it doesn’t cease to send a jolt of electricity zigzagging through my body, shocking my entire being. “Derek?”

The fact that this is the first time she addresses me by my name makes me weak in the knees, and it’s a near call I collapse down as though my joints and bones were made of jelly.

“ Yes?” I ask, whipping around to face her again. I try my best to make my voice the least croaky, not wanting her to know that my throat has gone dry.

“ I haven’t introduced myself,” she speaks up, sticking her hand out for me. “I’m (Y/N).” I accept her hand, giving it a firm, sure squeeze before letting go reluctantly.

“ Derek Hale,” I reply, making her giggle.

“ That’s nothing I didn’t know already.”

“ I just figured I’d try to be a good conversationalist and act like I’m not a successful lawyer.” Her eyes sparkle at my snarky remark, and I’m over the moon for the fact that we’re back to our standard sarcastic tone.

“ You couldn’t even deny it. Narcissism is clearly in your stance,” she retorts playfully.

“ Oh, my bad. It must be running in the family, I guess.”

“ I hope you don’t think that’s a valid excuse for being so sassy,” she teases, making me snicker.

“ Oh, damn, this is the first time I don’t get away with it,” I say, heading for the kitchen. Hearing soft padding of footsteps behind me, I realize (Y/N) is following hot on my heels, making my heart race. I want to be close to her, too.

Maybe it wasn’t just my imagination, and it was indeed pure, deep, raw  _ desire _ that I saw flaming in her eyes when I had her pinned between the desk and me and...

No. Stop. I can’t be thinking about that right now, not with her next to me, not when I hardly smoothed our relationship. It definitely doesn’t help when she says my name again.

“ Derek?”

“ Yeah?” I ask, schooling myself. Damn it, no one has ever had such an effect on me by doing so much as merely  _ calling me by my name _ .

“ Aren’t you closing that?” she asks, confused.

“ Uh,” I blurt intelligently, shrugging, only now realizing that I opened the fridge at some point. I act it out as though it was a deliberate, and not an unconscious move. “I figured you’d want some milk?” The corner of her mouth tugs up into a small smile.

“As far as I know, that’s a regular ingredient of a cappuccino .”

“ Right,” I nod, taking the bottle out and shutting the fridge.

“ Are you okay? You seem like your mind is wandering somewhere else.”

“ It’s just... my job. I was just thinking about my job.”

“ You know,” she says, inching towards me slowly. “It’s not only you who has to be able to read people.” She takes a step closer to me. “What is it, Derek?” Again, my freaking  _ name _ . “What’s the problem?”

Don’t. I shouldn’t get close, otherwise I may react the same way I had done before screwing things up with her.

“ Nothing,” I hedge. “Do you want cinnamon on top of your cappuccino?” I ask, attempting to change the subject.

“ Yes, please,” she says, apparently sensing my discomfort, because she lets it drop. “I hung your suit in the bathroom by the way,” she informs me.

“ You did? Thanks.” Her domestic attitude makes me smile, yet it equally induces a pang of pain in my chest for reminding me that this isn’t regular – just a one time only occasion.

And Lord knows how much I want her to do this for me everyday; to prepare meals for me, to take care of my clothes, cuddle her every single night and waking up next to her in the morning, being able to watch her as the first beams of the Sun break on her skin, tracing my fingertips along her side, erupting goosebumps and waking her with a languid kiss, whispering ‘good morning’ to her, bringing her breakfast to the bed, her coaxing me back under the sheets to tease me, straddle my hips, her hands finding my shoulders for leverage as she descends and bares her throat to me to bite down on the junction of her neck, my name ripping out of her throat in the form of a needy moan as I...

A soft noise dies at the back of my throat. I should honestly quit torturing myself with such images – it’s just not happening, and that’s that. My brain should catch up and register that piece of information, too. I hand the small cup over to her when her serving is ready, revelling in the softness of her now warm skin against mine.

“ I’m sorry for being rude,” she apologizes, but I shake my head.

“ No, it’s all right. I understand why you behaved that way.”

“ Still, I should have given you a chance to talk to me,” she insists, cheeks tinted the slightest bit of pink.

“ You had a reason not to,” I respond honestly. The fact that I had quite a bit of inappropriate pictures of her in my mind just a while ago further justifies her behaviour. (Y/N) hums, slowly shaking her head.

“ I still feel bad about it in retrospect.” Her fingers start drumming against the white porcelain nervously, and seeing that, my first instinct is to reach out to hold her hand in mine to calm her – as soon as I touch her, I realize that this was the worst possible choice I could have made. I jerk my hand away.

“ It’s okay, just let it go.”

“ I hope that wasn’t a Frozen reference there,” she teases, cocking her head to the side like a kitten. I snicker.

“ I can assure you it wasn’t.”

“ Good,” she nods, sipping from her cappuccino. I motion towards the living-room, “Let’s go back and take a seat, shall we?”

As we nestle ourselves on the couch, suddenly I become immensely conscious of the silence stretching between us. (Y/N) doesn’t seem to mind it, for her just sitting there next to me and drinking the steaming fluid, but as for me, nervousness wells up in me. Also, add the fact that my mind can’t forget how Peter whispered something to her, and I  _ have to know  _ what that was – knowing my uncle, it was something embarrassing about me.

“ What did Peter tell you?” I blurt with bold courage that takes over me before I could change my mind. (Y/N) looks over at me, eyes slightly wide. My gaze zeroes in on a white patch at the corner of her mouth, the milk foam of the cappuccino sticking there. My palms itch to wipe it away, but I hold myself back.

As soon as her cheeks go red, I immediately know that Peter did humiliate me with something.

She averts her eyes, speaking quietly, “Nothing.”

I allow a half-smile to tug up the corner of my mouth as I say, “Nothing usually doesn’t make people blush.” My comment only deepens the rosy colour of her face, and my mind is about to set off on a random journey again, but I leash it down to the ground. This is seriously not the time. She mumbles something under her breath after turning her face away from me slightly. “What? I couldn’t hear you.”

She repeats, but it’s still too obscure for me to comprehend her words. I tell her as much, to which her response is to finally speak loudly enough for me to hear what she’s saying.

“‘ Be careful with my nephew; he gets wild if you work him up too much’ is what he told me,” she says, fidgeting with the hem of my T-shirt she’s wearing. I force myself to look away from the small expanse of skin that’s revealed so that I can kickstart my brain to give an intelligible answer, abandoning every single thought of mine that has to do anything with skin and contact and fingertips and lips and generally,  _ everything _ about (Y/N) with me.

“ I’m sorry he said that,” I apologize genuinely. “Peter can certainly be a douche when he wants to be, and he knows exactly what to say to make the other party stinging.”

“ Guess that’s why he’s a successful attorney, too,” (Y/N) replies, sending over a small, playful smile to me. An easy grin widens to my lips as I nod, relaxing.

“ Yeah, probably.” I contemplate continuing to talk for a while, allowing silence to settle between us for the time being, before I speak up again. “Will you come back to my lectures?”

“ Will I have a place to sit?” she asks immediately, making me chuckle.

“ I can keep a seat reserved for you,” I offer. “But if all else fails, my chair is always open.” As soon as the words leave my mouth, I realize I most likely shouldn’t have said that – I scared her away with such demeanour, and last time she turned me down. I’m about to add something else to take away the sharp edge of my latest implied confession, but she beats me to it.

“ Do I have to be your TA, too?”

“ Only if you want to,” I answer, shoulders slumping once more as the tension is ebbing away. What has happened? Why isn’t she declining? Why is she still playful and careless? Does she want it, too? Does she want to be so close to me during the lesson? Does she want to help me teach and support me while I’m lecturing?

“ At least I won’t have to be standing around awkwardly at the back again,” she replies, making my heart flutter. “And you won’t have to worry about chalk patches on your clothes,” she adds, making me nearly choke on air as my brain recalls the memory – along with it, my body starts reacting to it on its own accord, my muscles tensing up, stomach curling into a tight knot, a lump forming in my throat and my heartbeat accelerating.

“ Yeah, you’re right,” I rasp, clearing my throat. Unconsciously, I adjust my tie in my neck, making her giggle softly and thus, earning my attention, hand stopping.

“ Your tie is still askew,” she points out, gesturing at said accessory with her chin. Before I could think twice about it, I tell her, “Then fix it for me,” to which her response is, “Gladly”, throwing me for a loop.


	6. Hot Chocolate

Before I know it, she moves closer to me on the couch, now sitting directly next to me, our thighs touching and her hands already smoothing over my tie, curling around the silk. My mind is swimming and a heavy haze is starting to invade it, just like back then in the lecture hall, heart this close to beat right out of my ribcage.

I’m watching with hooded eyes as (Y/N) is working, lips slightly parting, breathing elevating. I want to lay my hands on her  _ so bad _ , I want to cup her hips and massage the small of her back, pull her close and into my lap, attach my lips to the side of her neck to leave an obvious mark there finally, so that every guy in that damn institute will leave her the fuck alone – especially the one who I happened to meet a couple weeks ago.

I’m incapable of tearing my eyes away from her face, and before I know it, I realize that my head is slightly tilted to the side, ready to lean down and forward to kiss her. When she glances up at me from behind her long, thick jungle of eyelashes, I notice with a start that her pupils are dilated  _ again _ . Damn it, she wants it, too! And I’m straight-up  _ dying _ for it, dying to be able to touch her at last.

My fingers curl up, forming two tight fists in massive self-restraint. I can’t. I have to rid my mind of the image of pushing her back against the sofa to have her laying under me, imagining what she would look like without my clothes covering her body, especially because she took off her bra as well. What noises she would be making, what it would sound like hearing my name falling from her lush lips in a form of a needy, wanton whine, begging me to just get inside her already, pleading to me in a moan to go faster, harder,  _ Derek _ , harder,  _ please _ –

A wild shiver runs down my spine, shaking me awake.

I’m awake now, hence the fact that her clever fingers are tantalizingly slowly unbuttoning the vest of my two-piece suit registers. At this point, I can’t be misinterpreting this now, can I? It can’t be a misunderstanding, right? Her hands are steady, sure as they are working, and she tugs the tie back under accordingly, fixing and smoothing out the material.

That’s not what I want. What I want includes her taking a firm hold of my tie to pull it to reel me in for a searing kiss, showing me how eager she is for me by keeping me close, biting on my lip and panting into my mouth as I run my hands over her body.

She flashes a kind smile at me, but the angelic innocence of it is tainted by a tad of devilish foxiness. It makes my insides quiver – she did it  _ on purpose _ . Is she trying to test out my limits?

(Y/N) leans back on the couch and reaches for the cappuccino, taking a tentative sip from the hot drink. Internally, I groan in disappointment, trying to will my body to calm down. To further help myself, I ask, “Are you free tomorrow?”

She cocks an eyebrow at me. “For what?”

“ Your hot chocolate,” I answer. “I don’t like to be in debt,” I explain, to which she nods, saying, “Okay.” Before I could ask her when she’s open, she adds, “I have a free period from noon and have another lecture in the evening.”

“ All right,” I say. “I’ll pick you up then.” I only have a lecture in the evening tomorrow and a hearing in the morning, but that should end by eleven at most. “Wait for me a couple streets away.”

“ Where you picked me up today?”

“ Deal,” I say, grinning at her.

Instead of asking me why I need her to walk away from the university, (Y/N) just nods in acknowledgement – obviously, she wouldn’t want to be seen with me in front of too many people, either.

(Y/N) then looks out the window, noting, “It’s stopped raining.”

I follow her gaze with mine, puzzled. I force my voice to sound as carefree as possible as I say, “It did,” trying to make sure my reluctance to let her leave won’t be too obvious. “Want me to take you home?” I offer.

She smiles at me, “No, but thank you. I’ll walk.”

I stand to head to the bathroom to check her clothes; they are still wet, and my heart flutters – this means she’s going to take my clothes home with her. I ask her in a raised voice, “Do you want to take your clothes with you? They are still yet to dry.”

“ I’ll change back to them.”

“ No,” I respond without thinking. “You go and wear my stuff. You can give it back tomorrow, and I’ll give you yours. How does that sound?”

She doesn’t reply right away.

“ Okay. Thank you.”

“ No problem.” I migrate back to the living-room to join her, only to find her already standing, walking towards the kitchen to take the empty cup back there. I hurry over to her to do it for her, taking the cup away gently, saying, “Let me,” to which she mumbles another “thank you”.

After finishing in the kitchen, I make a beeline for my bedroom to snatch the matching sweatshirt for her. I hand it over to her, helping her into it. It’s loose on her, and hides her shape, but I find it endearing nonetheless. She shoulders her bag, puts her shoes on, then turns to face me, and suddenly I feel awkward again. I want to kiss her goodbye, or at least hug her if nothing else, but I resist it.

“ Thank you for everything,” she says, fingers drumming and curling around the strap of her bag anxiously, chewing on the side of her lower lip.

“ You’re welcome.”

I see her to the elevator and wait until she leaves; a long breath escapes my lungs that I wasn’t even aware of holding back, shoulders slumping, heart beating fast in anticipation to see her again.

. o O o .

Sitting in my car the next day, I curse myself for failing to ask for her number. I keep glancing in the rearview mirror and roaming my gaze around. I spot a few familiar faces among the students who are leaving the institute, hence I opt to act busy, typing away on my phone so that no one will disturb me.

Then there’s a knock on the window of the passenger side, and instantly my head whips around, gaze meeting (Y/N)’s. She waves to me with a smile.

A wide grin stretches to my face as I reach over to unlock the door for her. As she hops in, her sweet redolence hits my nose.

“ Hey, Derek,” she greets me.

“Hello , (Y/N),” I say, bringing the engine to life. Some pupils have seen her climbing into my car, but I couldn’t care less – not when I finally have her with me again. I note in my mind that she’s dressed nicely this time, like she actually put effort into picking out what clothes to wear; she has a pair of dark jeans on and a button-up shirt, its colour highlighting her face neatly.

“ How was your day?” I ask, taking a turn to the right. I feel like we’ve been together for a long time, and the only thing I miss is a kiss by way of saying hello to each other.

“ Long, and it’s still not over yet,” she answers, shrugging. “But the curriculum’s interesting, so it’s okay.”

“ What are you learning about?”

“ Ever heard of Jung?” I shake my head. “Well, we’ve been dissecting his theories about shadow personalities and archetypes. He was Freud’s student, by the way.”

“ That name I’ve heard before,” I comment, making her chuckle.

“ How literate of you,” she teases. I flash a grin at her to which her response is a soft laugh that warms my insides. I want to hear it more and more. “Can you tell me the number of the paragraph that defines who is rightfully declared a dead person after not being found for years?”

“ The limit is seven years,” I reply immediately. “And it’s §317 25d.”

“ I knew it!” she exclaims playfully. The corners of my mouth tug up at her reaction.

“ Knew what?”

“ That you know the numbers of the paragraphs by heart.”

A laugh rips out of my throat at that, softly slowing the Camaro. When she sees where I’m taking her, she protests, “Oh my God, when you offered to buy me a hot chocolate, I was thinking Starbucks, not Olive Restaurant. This is the most expensive place in town, the prices are so steep they worth my monthly paycheck.”

“ Relax,” I soothe her, swallowing back my snicker.

“ Right, some of us are successful attorneys, how could I forget,” she says, playfully rolling her eyes at me. I laugh, holding the door open for her after entering, soft jazz music engulfing our ears immediately. I offer my arm to her, which she accepts without thinking about it, curling her fingers into the crook. I lead her to a nice table by the window, pulling the chair out for her before going to the opposite side to take my place, too. “And what about you?”

“ Hm?” I ask, fixing my tie with a hand.

“ Your day,” she explains. “How has it been so far?”

“ Fine, but mine’s not over yet, either,” I tell her. “I have a lecture in the evening.”

“ Isn’t it too much?” she asks. “Doing so many things I mean.”

“ No,” I chuckle. “I would straight-up go nuts if there was nothing I could be working on. I hate being unproductive, it always gets the better of me.”

“ Sounds to me like you’re a bit of a workaholic?”

I can’t help my smile at that, but before I could reply with anything, a waitress approaches us to take our order.

“ What can I get you?” she asks, eyes commuting between (Y/N) and I, notepad and pen in hand.

“ A hot chocolate and coffee. Black,” I answer, turning to (Y/N). “Want anything else?” Although she shakes her head, I request two slices of cakes, too. Before (Y/N) could protest, I say, “It’s my treat,” then nod for the waitress to sign her that I’m done. She leaves to prepare our servings. “So where were we?”

She giggles before she says, “Somewhere around discussing how controlling of a workaholic you are.”

I chuckle at her comment, making myself comfortable on the chair.

“ You love it,” I tease back, leaning over the edge of the table just a tad. “Otherwise you’d already be on your way to go against me.” Matching my motions, she leans closer to me, too, laying her forearms over the surface.

“ I might,” she says. “But then again, you can never be completely sure. Maybe I just want you to  _ believe _ you have the upper hand here.”

“ Oh? Knowing you, you’d already be sabotaging my plans if you didn’t like them. You’re the kind of person who takes the initiative when necessary.”

“ How confident you are about your assessments,” she comments, a half-smile slowly tugging at the corner of her mouth.

“ I’d be lost without it in my work, sweetheart.” My breath hitches in my throat as soon as I realize my mistake, but she doesn’t seem to mind it – at all. More so, she seems to be enjoying being addressed by pet names. (Y/N) just tilts her head to the side, revealing the side of her neck to me again, waking the urge in me to mark her up once more.

My phone starts buzzing in the inner pocket of my suit, shaking me awake from the moment. I have to restart my brain as I reach for the device. Accepting the call, I hold my index finger up for (Y/N), telling her mutely to wait, to which she nods in acknowledgement.

“ Hale,” I begin simply, businesslike.

“ The attorney of the defendant from this morning’s hearing,” Erica says immediately. The fact that she completely forgot about greeting lets me know it’s something important.

“ Yes, Turing. What’s with him?” I can hear the way Erica is fumbling with dozens of papers over the phone.

“ Apparently he found further evidences to prove that the guy is innocent.”

The waitress comes back with our orders, placing them on the table meekly in front of us, however, (Y/N) doesn’t even glance at them, just holds gazes with me.

“ What?” I exclaim. “He can’t be pulling evidences out of thin air!”

“ As you can see, he can,” she sneers. I massage the bridge of my nose, eyes falling shut to organize my thoughts and come up with a plan as soon as possible. “When is the next hearing? Turing’s the kind of guy to make an appointment as soon as possible when he feels like he’s going to win.”

“ A week from now,” comes Erica’s answer. I exhale a long breath, slowly.

“ All right,” I mumble, forcing my mind to work still. “Do we know who were the pictures taken of?”

“ A girl, but Isaac’s still yet to find out her name. What he does know is that they were taken of someone who studies at the university you’re tutoring at.”

“ Thanks. Give me a heads up immediately if something else comes up,” I instruct, then end the call. (Y/N) gives me a worried look. Before she could ask anything else, I shake my head. “Sorry. It’s nothing.”

“ Derek,” she says sternly. “I can clearly see something serious has come up. Your shoulders are tense and your jaw is clenched.” She keeps staring into my eyes for a couple more seconds, asking, “Can I help you with anything? What’s the case about?”

“ I can’t tell you that,” I point out without thinking. She purses her lips, leaning back and away from me, resting her back against the chair now. I desperately want her close to me again, but I know I have to wait until I can create the atmosphere again. I pick up the spoon and start stirring my coffee, with (Y/N) following suit.

“ So your day started with a hearing, I assume?” she asks. I nod.

“ Yeah. The defendant is the worst kind of sneaky trash of mankind,” I say, disdain clearly audible in my voice. (Y/N) gives me a worried look, but I just chuckle. “I think we should change the subject. My cases aren’t the best choice to converse about.”

“ What else do you have to do?” she asks, taking a sip of her hot chocolate. “I’m curious of what a regular week of yours looks like.”

I fish my phone out from my pocket again, checking my agenda. “This week, I have to write a contract for one of our partner companies, I have to attend a dinner with one of the judges tomorrow evening, I have a hearing two days from now, and as a regular, I have to accumulate any kind of information I can lay my hands on to win my cases. I hired an assistant, but he’s still a beginner and needs a lot of supervision for his work. And then this Turing guy screwed shit up for me again.” I hand my phone over to her, adding, “You can check it. I already have events scheduled in six months’ advance.”

“ You also have gym scheduled here,” she notes with a half-smile, eyes sparkling as she glances up at me. I grin at her as I nod.

“ Of course. I need to drain the frustration somehow,” I reply, drinking from the coffee.

“ What do you usually do there?”

“ Just the usual training, but occasionally I also engage in kick-box fights or wrestling when there are willing opponents,” I answer.

“ Would you wrestle with me?” she asks, making me bark out a startled laugh.

“ Are you sure you’d want that?” She shrugs, teasing with a playful smile, “Scared I’d win?” I chuckle as I shake my head. “Schedule yourself,” I instruct her, jerking my chin towards the device in her hands, and already her fingers are flashing over the touchscreen. I chew on the inside of my cheek in contemplation, thinking whether it would be a good idea to tell her to also put her number in there. In the end, I figure I have nothing to loose – just her. And although that’s much more than anything else, I  _ have to _ risk it. “Since you already have my phone in your hands, you could might as well add yourself to my contact list.”

(Y/N) looks up at me, fingers halting above the screen. There is clear surprise reflecting from her features, only for it to morph into a blissful smile – if that doesn’t make me go weak in the knees, then nothing else. I hardly catch as she says, “Okay.”

When we finish eating and drinking our cakes and drinks, we proceed to leave. Just like when we came, I offer my arm to her to lead her outdoors to the Camaro. On our way to the car, she says, “I brought you your stuff, by the way.”

“ I brought yours, too,” I reply. I can feel as her fingers flex around my elbow, signing me she’s nervous for some reason. I want to ask her about it, but I refrain from doing so, instead opt to wait out until she decides on her own to share it with me. What she tells me in the end puzzles me.

“ I think I left something at yours yesterday.”

And the only thing I can do is telling her to come to mine again after our classes.


	7. Visit

The elevator doors slide closed and I turn around, speaking. “I have no idea what you’d left here, because I didn’t find anything when –”

The rest of my sentence is cut off when I see (Y/N) stepping closer to me. Her eyes are dark, hooded, roaming my face, yet mostly focused on my lips. She doesn’t stop until she’s standing right in front of me. I whisper, “(Y/N)...” but she only puts her index finger on my mouth, shutting me up and pushing me against the metal with gentle force, murmuring, “Shh.”

My pupils explode wide as soon as my back hits the door. Her fingers move downwards, beginning their work of unbuttoning the vest of my three-piece suit. My breathing is elevating, her fingers are moving, eventually curling around my tie. She tugs on it meekly, tilting her head up to be face to face with me. I only now realize it that my hands have found her hips at some point, fingers flexing as they are cupping the sides of her pelvis.

Her hot breath lavishes over my skin before she mildly touches her lips to mine, sending a shiver down my spine – I want more, so much  _ more _ than this. But am I allowed? She’s always been playing with me, I don’t know if I really am allowed to take this to a whole new level this time.

As though she were reading my thoughts, she lets go of my tie with a hand, only to grab one of mine and slide it to her butt, whispering against my mouth, her lips catching on to mine in an irresistible tease as she’s talking, “I thought you wanted me.”

A guttural groan rips out of the back of my throat before I turn us around and kiss her, bruising, hard, wanton, demanding. She makes a noise, but I swallow it down, and I can feel as my brain is rapidly losing blood for the sake of it to flow south. It’s insane how fast (Y/N) can make me loose my cool, make me loose my mind and turn me on. My trousers are already too tight.

As I change to nip over her jawline, having gone crazy for finally being able to touch and  _ take _ what I’ve wanted for too damn long, she gasps, sinful, “What do you want me to do, Mr. Hale?”

I can’t help my moan.

“ Holy fuck,” I mumble, hoisting both of her legs up and wrapping them around my waist, her fingers finding my scalp and pulling at my hair when I helplessly shove my groin against hers. I want her so much it’s  _ ridiculous _ . “Say that again. Fuck, baby,  _ say that again _ .”

“ Please fuck me, Mr. Hale,” she begs, and there’s so much I can do not to come right then and there into my pants. What wouldn’t have I given to hear that sentence fall from her lips all this time! I’m so overwhelmed with my permission to touch her that I don’t even know what to do with my hands all of a sudden.

“ I will, baby, I’ll make it so good for you,” I breathe my promise into her ear, squeezing her in between my body and the wall, palms wandering to her ass and breast, lips latching on to the side of her neck once more, sucking an impressive lovebite into the surface like I desired. She makes unbelievably sexy noises as my fingers are working, massaging her sweet spots, allowing my teeth to not only graze, but also to sink into her neck just a tad to make sure I do leave a permanent mark.

She sounds even more enticing and way hotter than what I imagined – my mind wasn’t even close to reality, and yet I always came so hard when I jerked off thinking about her screaming my name every single night.

I’m impatiently unbuttoning her shirt to reveal her body to me. I saw it in the car yesterday through her soaked top when I picked her up, but that wasn’t enough; I also want to feel the warmth of her skin under my fingertips, cover it in kisses and hickeys. As soon as the last of the buttons is undone, I tear the material off of her, mouth finding her bare shoulder without missing a beat.

“ Ah, Derek,” she whines, clawing at the collar of my shirt, fumbling to undo mine as well. I’m so hard by now that it legitimately  _ hurts _ , and I need to take off my pants  _ right now _ .

So, I grab two handfuls of her ass as I carry her over to my bedroom, putting her down only to help her frantic hands with their job of ridding me of my clothes. I think I ripped one of the buttons off in my hurry, but I don’t care. The only thing I care about is (Y/N) – (Y/N) in her tempting lacy lingerie, cheeks flushed, mouth slightly open, chest rising and falling rapidly, pupils blown, hardly able to wait to have me all over her.

I moan at the thought, stepping directly in front of her and taking her cheeks in my hands, tilting her head up so that I can kiss her the way I want to. She opens her mouth up to me without me having to request, and my tongue slides into hers, exploring and invading it, massaging her tongue alluringly, until she can’t help her wanton sounds any more. She reaches down to undo my belt, occasionally colliding to my erection through my pants, making me gasp into her mouth.

“ You’re so hard, Mr. Hale,” she husks against my chin, biting on it teasingly.

“ Only for you, (Y/N),” I rasp. “That’s what you do to me. All the fucking time.”

“ Do you want me to suck you off, Mr. Hale?” she asks in an innocent voice, blinking at me with huge eyes, sending a wild shiver down my spine. I barely manage a weak shake with my head – as much as I want her to do that, I need to be inside her first. I need to take her, I need to come inside her, I need to know what she feels like wrapped around me,  _ I need _ ...

“ I have to –” I pant out, but I have to swallow. She giggles.

“ I think I understand you, Mr. Hale,” she singsongs, kicking off her jeans. She tugs harshly at the tie that she deliberately left in my neck and pulls me with her via it as she lays back on the bed.

I follow her as though I were a puppet and she the puppeteer, helpless against her will as she’s controlling me with invisible cords. I get rid of my trousers, too, hot palms sliding down on her sides, erupting goosebumps in their wake – just how I wanted in my fantasies about her. I whisper into her ear, “I love that you’re wearing a thong,” touching the moist material. “Shit, you’re already  _ drenched _ .”

“ I’m ready for you, Derek,” she groans, automatically bucking her hips, seeking more friction, which I give to her willingly.

“ I thought about this so much,” I admit. “I want to make this good for you.”

“ You already are,” she assures, tone high-pitched and deeply soaked with desire.

I have to suppress my growl at that. Her fingers are clawing at the hem of my black boxer briefs, apparently wanton and impatient to finally have me freed and moving in her. Heart skipping a beat at the image of that, I shove my briefs down, carelessly tossing them somewhere on the ground. I cry out when (Y/N) starts stroking me slowly, hips and body rocking back and forth in sync with her rhythm on its own accord.

“ Y-you strip, too,” I gasp, reaching under her back to unclasp her bra, but she lets go of me and sits up to do it herself. She’s beautiful – I can’t resist launching forward and taking one of her nipples in my mouth, bringing it to attention. She’s calling out my name above me, making me more and more worked up by the minute, pulling at my hair and pleading to me to just get inside her.

I oblige; I pull her lacy thong off of her with my teeth, maintaining eye contact all the while and making her shiver. I kiss my way back up on the entire length of her body, occasionally nipping her soft skin. She tugs my tie off, too, while simultaneously wrapping her legs around my waist to keep me close. I groan as my groin meets hers, but instead of revelling in that feeling for too long, I line myself up – as I thrust into her, I could cry at how  _ perfect _ she is wrapped around me.

**Reader POV**

As Derek pushes into me, my fingers tangle in his short, dark locks of hair at his nape. His arms are bracketing me, forearms laying on the mattress, palms under my head to hold me like I’m too precious to him, like he wants to protect me from every harm, like this is the best moment of his entire life.

My name is constantly falling from his lips in gasping whispers as though he couldn’t believe this is really happening. His movements are thorough, slow drags, making me feel every single part of him.

Derek leans down to pepper kisses all over my cheek, jaw, chin, nose, the side of my neck and my shoulder, his hot breath lavishing over my sensitive skin like passionate torching fire that combusts everything in its wake. One of my hands stays wrapped up in his hair while the other goes on a trip alongside the valley of his spine in the middle of his ridiculously ripped back, feeling as the muscles shift swiftly under my touch.

This is so much better than what I was expecting.

When Derek’s uncle, Peter came and embarrassed his nephew in front of me, I was also informed about the fact that Derek isn’t the player type that I believed him to be – in fact, I couldn’t have been more wrong about him. Derek is the complete opposite of a playboy; he’s monogamous, he’s caring, he showers his partner in his genuine attention, he shares my sense of humour and enjoys my quirky jokes, and he’s always tried his hardest to hold himself back not to do anything I wouldn’t want, even when I was deliberately teasing him.

And ever since I got to know this, I’ve wanted to be with him, too, at least as much as he’s been desiring me.

Although I expected Derek to be wild, his primary focus is to make me enjoy it, just like he promised not long ago. This eerily feels like  _ making love _ , and not merely instinctual sex.

When I begin meeting his thrusts, Derek picks up his rhythm just a tad. From his back, I slide my palm to cup his cheek, and he meets my gaze. His pupils are blown wide with happiness sparkling in his eyes, making my heart flutter in response. We move at the same time to kiss the other, our lips locking and tongues dancing with each other languidly, affectionately. Unconsciously, I tighten my hold around him with my legs, gradually climbing closer and closer to my high, the tight knot in my belly building ever so slowly.

“ Derek,” I cry out, teetering on the edge.

“ I’m here, baby,” he whispers, pressing a long kiss to the skin under my ear. “Come for me, (Y/N). Show me how beautiful you are when you come.”

With a particularly hard roll of his hips, he tosses me over the border and I set off to fly in Heaven, pulling Derek with me. As we start to descend from among the golden clouds, he keeps moving inside me carefully to help us both ride out our orgasms. Then he stops, and the only thing that can be heard in the entire room is our elevated breathing.

My thumb is smoothing over his plush pink lip when he whispers, “I love you.”

He throws me for a loop with that sudden confession, but I don’t take long to reply, feeling the same way about him. “I love you, too.”

I can’t express how blissful his smile is when he hears my answer. He looks innocent and young, like a little boy who’s just been promised to be given candy or taken to Disney Land. Derek steals another kiss from me, this one being giddy and making me feel like thousands of sparklers explode within me at the exact same moment.

After breaking the kiss, Derek pulls out of me and lays next to me, spooning me. The only thing that registers to me before falling asleep is him kissing and stroking my hair.

In the morning, the first thing I see when I blink my eyes open is Derek propping himself on an elbow next to my head, his eyes skimming through my face with a loving look in them. He brushes out a stray strand of hair from my face as he leans close to me, murmuring against my skin, “Good morning, (Y/N).”

“ To you, too,” I answer, blushing lightly at the kiss he places on my cheek. I can’t help my quiet giggle as I glance up at him. He cocks his head to the side, brow arching, “What is it?” I shrug, telling him, “This is the first time I see you with dishevelled hair.”

He snickers at my comment. “I can’t be squeaky clean all the time.”

“ I like you this way more,” I say, reaching up to entangle my fingers with his bedhead, pulling him down to me, touching my lips to his. We smile into the kiss occasionally, but never break it. After a while, his palm finds my side and smooths over my skin through the thin blanket that covers my body.

When Derek pulls back to rest his forehead against mine, I ask him, “Are you hungry?”

He nods, “Starving.”

I sneak out of his embrace, picking up my thong from the floor where Derek tossed it last night, and slide into the shirt he wore yesterday. I can hear rustling behind me, and while I’m in the middle of buttoning his garment on me, his arms snake around me, pulling my back flush to his chest, his lips leaving a kiss on my temple.

“ What do you want for breakfast?” I ask quietly, allowing him to accommodate my weight.

“ Anything you make is perfect for me,” he answers, planting another peck on my cheek. “But for now, I don’t want to let go of you.”

“ Well, you have to if you want to eat,” I tease, making him chuckle. He hums.

“ I think I can wait,” he murmurs into my skin, leaving a trail of kisses along the side of my neck, pushing the collar of his shirt away to reveal my shoulder to him.

“ You need to be getting ready, honey,” I remind him, making him freeze.

“ What time is it?”

“ Half past nine,” I answer, to which he curses silently.

“ You’re late for your classes, aren’t you?”

“ It’s okay. I never miss any of them, so one time won’t kill me,” I soothe him, twirling around in his hold, hands finding his cheeks once more. “Let me take care of you this morning, okay? I want to make this perfect for you, too.”

He smiles at me before whispering, “Okay.”

Derek goes to take a quick shower, whereas I migrate to the kitchen to start preparing breakfast for him. I make an easy salad and an omelet with toasts. By the time I’m setting the table, he approaches, already dressed and adjusting his tie, face smooth as a newborn baby’s skin after getting rid of his five o’clock shadow. I love the scent of his cologne.

“ Thank you, baby,” he says, reeling me in for a curt kiss. I giggle, then take the seat from across him. His phone buzzes with a new text message, but he only spares it a glance. “I was just invited for a poker game with some of my acquaintances. Want to come with me?”

I’m startled by his offer. I wouldn’t have thought he would be so willing to be seen with me in front of his co-workers and friends. “I, uh, o-okay, sure,” I stutter, face heating up. He smiles that half-smile at me that he keeps preserved privately for me.

“ It’s fine if you don’t want to come,” he adds. “I just want to spend as much time with you as possible. If I devote all of my free time to my shallow relationships, I will eventually loose the real, important ones, and I don’t want that.”

“ Okay, I’ll go,” I assure him. “Just tell me what I’m supposed to wear and the such. I’ve never been to such events.”

“ That shouldn’t be a problem,” he nods. “I’ll make time for you today so we can go and buy you a nice dress, how does that sound?”

“ No, that’s too much,” I protest. “But thank you.”

“ (Y/N), relax,” he coos. “It’s fine. I want to give you everything I can.”

I don’t say anything to that. I haven’t met anyone who wanted to take care of me so genuinely, in every possible way.

When we’re done eating, I proceed to wash the dishes. Derek steps behind me, palms finding the small of my back and my hip, massaging my skin over his shirt sensually, making my eyes fall shut and lips part on a soft sigh. He groans into my ear, “I don’t want to go yet.”

I giggle, pecking his cheek. “You have to. I’ll stay here and wait for you if you want.”

“ I definitely want that,” he answers without thinking. I dry my hands and turn to face him to fix his suit on him and brush away every grain of dust to make his outfit immaculate, but he receives a call. “Hale,” he says. I can see as his face morphs into one of fright, the blood flowing out of it, leaving it dead pale.

“ Isaac found out who the girl is on the pictures. Her name is (Y/N).”


	8. Agenda

“ Erica, cancel all my plans for this afternoon,” I say, holding my index finger up when (Y/N) asks what has happened, signing her to wait.

“ Understood,” comes my secretary’s voice from the other end of the line. “Anything else?”

“ Fax me everything about Turing’s case to my home. I have a conference to attend this morning, and a lecture to get to after that, but...” My tongue darts out as I wet my lips, contemplating my choices. “Tell Victoria and Scott that I can’t appear personally on the conference. Tell them I’ll be in connection with them via phone, but I have to work simultaneously. Also, ask Scott to let Stiles help Isaac with my case for the time being; he owes me one. I need to crush Turing this time.”

“ And the lecture?” asks Erica. I can practically see in front of my mind’s eye as her pen is hovering over the notepad, waiting for my instruction.

“ That’s the only place I’m going to today,” is all I say before ending the call.

(Y/N) gives me a worried look.

“ Now I can tell you about my case,” I tell her. “Since you’re involved in it, too.”

“ What?” she asks, startled. “How could  _ I _ be involved in any of your cases?”

“ This one is about a stalker. The defendant’s lawyer is Harrison Turing, a serious pain in the ass. Erica is already faxing the records for you – I already know them but I need you to read them, too. You are going to come to court with me next week, with me being your lawyer.”

Her mouth is agape in surprise, but then she clicks it shut and goes to my study where the printer is working. I follow her wordlessly, taking off my suit and hanging it on the back of my chair next to my desk, leaving me in the vest only. As soon as she reads who the defendant is, she exclaims, “You can’t be serious!”

“ What? Why?” I ask, approaching her. I sit next to her on the black leather couch.

“ Matt Daehler is my friend! You saw him with me, too! He can’t be a stalker.”

“ He’s  _ your _ stalker, (Y/N),” I point out. “He took several pictures of you. Originally, this case was Isaac’s, that’s why I didn’t have an idea until now that I could possibly know the name of the girl in the pictures, but I’m taking it from him. Turing is capable of easily destroying Isaac in front of the jury, but he will have serious problems with me. I won’t let Daehler off the hook.”

“ But you saw him with me!” she protests, still refusing to believe it.

“ I honestly can’t remember that,” I admit.

“ When we first met after your lecture,” she reminds me. “You were heading to your office because you left some papers there for one of your upcoming hearings.” It clicks. That was when I deliberately bumped into them to finally be able to talk to her. But I merely glanced at the guy once, and my brain deleted his face from my memory, discarding it as unimportant. I rub the bridge of my nose. “He told me he’d be absent for a while because some family business came up.”

“ (Y/N),” I start. “There’s no ‘family business’ going on. He’s in pre-trial detention. I visited him once with Isaac.” Her hand is shaking due to the shock, so I take it in my mine to steady her. “No one can know about our relationship until this case ends. It’s important. Otherwise they won’t allow me to be your lawyer, and I’m not having that. I want to be the one to protect you.”

She nods, however, I can tell that it’s more of an automatic, and not a conscious reaction.

“ Thank you,” I smile at her, kissing her cheek.

“ For what?” she whispers, voice weak as it barely brushes the air.

“ For letting me do this for you.”

I stand then, and migrate to my desk to boot my laptop. I open a text editor to type up a contract, which I print out immediately and slide in front of (Y/N), along with a pen. “Sign it.”

“ What is this?”

“ Contract. To make me being your lawyer official.” Without further ado, she does as I told her, and hands the paper back to me. “Great. I’m calling Isaac to pick it up on his way to the office and give it to Erica.”

“ Who’s Isaac?” she asks. I answer with my phone already in my hand, speed dialling him.

“ Isaac is my assistant. Every senior partner has one. Scott’s assistant is Stiles, he’s the one I requested to help Isaac to find out what Turing has up his sleeve. He’s required to show it to us, obviously, but knowing him, he’s going to keep the big gun hidden until the last minute. I want to be prepared for everything, but if all else fails, I might just have to take the gun from him and point it at his head instead of mine.” Just as I finish the sentence, the call connects. “Isaac, come to mine before you go to the office. Take a cab, it’s faster.”

“ That was harsh,” (Y/N) comments, but I shrug, putting my mobile away.

“ There’s no room for feelings in our job,” I point out. “Besides, he’s used to it already.”

Isaac arrives within twenty minutes. I proceed to scold him because he took an awful lot of time, but (Y/N) stops me.

“ Is that (Y/N)?” Isaac asks in disbelief. “She’s the one –”

“ She is,” I interrupt. “I’m her lawyer. I’m taking the case from you, otherwise Turing would humiliate you in front of the jury.”

“ So you’d rather him humiliate you?”

“ He’ll have a slightly harder time with me,” I assure him. “It’s okay, anyway. Whatever you do, the responsibility is mine. Result’s the same either way.”

“ You and your results-orientation,” mumbles Isaac under his breath, but I opt not to comment on it.

Since the printer is still not done, (Y/N) walks over to it to see what files are being transferred to me now. She gasps as soon as he sees the papers. I approach her to see what it is. They are the photoshopped pictures Matt took of her.

“ This didn’t even happen!” she exclaims.

“ I know,” I tell her. “I told you he was your stalker.”

“ And how has this case been going so far?” (Y/N) asks. I’m already opening my mouth to answer, but Isaac beats me to it.

“ I asked the other girls to attend the hearings, but they were always dismissed by the judge.”

“ Because Turing wanted him to,” I add, disdain seeping into my tone. (Y/N) hums. “They said the pictures were too blurred, therefore we can’t know for sure whether those were indeed the girls in the pictures. Anyway, the way I see it, Matt is better at it than that, they just edited the photos later on.”

“ But why didn’t they edit mine as well?” she asks.

“ I guess because you’re the most precious to him; as you can see, he built this whole fake relationship with you,” I spit out the words hatefully. This is disgusting. And he touched – he  _ touched _ – (Y/N). I suddenly have the urge to wash her body, to cover her up in my touches and kisses to wipe away the ghost of Matt’s fingers. “Isaac,” I say, voice stern and authoritative. I don’t break eye contact with (Y/N) as I speak. “I think you want to take the contract to Erica as fast as possible.”

(Y/N) senses my intentions; it feels like a spark has been ignited between us.

“ Oh,” he says, fumbling. “Sure. Yeah. I’m going.” Isaac scrambles to leave, and the elevator barely closes when I’m already over (Y/N), kissing her with intent. She stumbles a bit by my force, but I have a sure hold on the small of her back, and her arms are wrapped around my neck. We fall back on the couch, and I break away from her mouth to start kissing her neck, which she bares for me willingly.

“ Derek,” she gasps, wanton, fingers tugging at my hair when I bite on her skin. Her legs fall open, bracketing my hips, and I immediately take advantage of the position, bucking my groin against hers, and she grips my tie firmly, holding me impossibly close.

“ I want you,” she whines into my ear, reaching down to cup me through my trousers. I moan at her tentative, yet demanding touch, wanting to be free again. “Please, Derek.”

“ I’m giving it to you, baby,” I promise, breathless, unbuckling my belt quickly. (Y/N) kicks off her panties, and I reach down to her dripping folds, soothing her need for contact. Two of my fingers dip into her easily, and she’s already meeting my movements with her hips. She’s busy freeing me, her hand finding my erection as it’s straining against the fabric of my boxer briefs, stroking me to return the treatment I’m giving her. We let go of each other after a short while, moving at the same time, to let me slide into her finally, but just as my tip nudges at her entrance, the phone in my study starts ringing, startling us into frozen shock.

We stare into each other’s eyes, then my head falls in exasperation, forehead resting against the crook of her neck, revelling in the panting noises of her elevated breathing and accelerated heartbeat.

“ Damn it,” I curse as I push myself off, tucking myself back into my trousers and walking over to the phone to accept the call. I put it on speaker, and tell (Y/N) to be quiet with an index finger in front of my mouth.

“ I’m glad you can devote us some of your precious time,” comes my boss’s sarcastic voice over the mic. I roll my eyes.

“ You know I always do my job,” I point out sharply.

“ True. But I still expect you not to refuse to come to a conference in the last minute.”

“ Something came up,” I answer, pacing the room.

“ More important than your job?” I look over at (Y/N), still heaving on the couch, limbs mildly shaking, trying to calm down. I want to help her by tossing her over the edge.

“ Much more important,” I end up saying, forcing myself to tear my eyes away from her tempting figure. There is silence at first, then Victoria sighs, long and deep.

“ All right,” she says. “Now let’s talk about the original topic.”

**Reader POV**

As soon as I feel like I’ve gained enough power back, I stand and tiptoe out of Derek’s study to let him focus on the conference entirely – I know I’m distracting him.

I go to the kitchen to finish washing the dishes. I glance at the clock, noting that Derek has two more hours before he has to go to the university, recalling his agenda. I’m so happy I decided to come to him in the end; I knew that my excuse of ‘having left something at his place’ was painfully obvious, but directly asking him to take me to his flat seemed all that much more awkward.

I hum to myself as I’m working, getting lost in the sounds of the flowing water and the lemony scent of the soap.

It takes another hour for Derek to emerge from his study. Immediately, he heads to the fridge to snatch a bottle of sparkling water from it, only to approach me then and place a tender kiss on my temple. I giggle. “Aren’t you worried? Isaac must have figured out our secret.”

“ That kid owes me. A lot,” he replies, tone just this side of cocky, kissing my cheek. “He won’t tell anyone.” As his hold tightens around my hips, and he leans in to exhale a long breath right into my ear, hotness explodes in me; I know what he wants. I know he wants to continue where we left off, but we can’t, not now, not when he has less than an hour to get to the university to give a lecture.

“ I want to get you off before I go,” he rasps into my ear, hot breath licking over the shell of it, making my entire being shiver.

“ You’ll be late,” I point out weakly, voice barely brushing through the particles of the air, but it’s useless, because Derek is already grabbing me to sit me on the counter, mouth latching to the side of my neck over the bruise he left there yesterday to make the hickey that much more prominent and lasting. I throw my head back, crying out his name when his fingers slide along my bare, moist folds.

“ I’ll be quick,” he promises. “I just can’t leave without seeing you fall apart again.”

“ And you?” I whine, fingers gripping his biceps through his shirt.

“ I’ll get myself together by the time I get to the uni, don’t worry about me, baby,” he whispers, then adds in a ragged voice, pushing two of his fingers into me, “If I didn’t have to work today, I’d spend the entire day with you, mapping out your body with my tongue.” He starts pumping his fingers faster, eventually adding a third one as he continues talking, “cataloguing every single one of the reactions you give me as you come, the way you cry my name, beg to me, grip my hair, come apart by me again and again.”

As if on cue, my back arches into a tight bow, body spasming into the orgasmic stupor, fingers flexing around his shirt, eyes squeezed shut, jaw going slack, toes curling, his voice in my ear praising, “Yes, baby, that’s it, come for me.”

He works me through my climax, gradually slowing his movements. My harsh, quick breathing envelops us, and when I come back to myself, it registers that Derek’s breathing is laboured too, and there’s nothing in this world that I want more than granting him pleasure.

I don’t need further pushes as he licks his fingers clean. With two hands against his chest, I push him away meekly. He obliges, and I drop to my knees without missing a beat. Derek immediately starts protesting, but I won’t have it, instead undo his belt stubbornly, shove his pants down and free him. He leans back against he counter, gripping its edge for leverage.

“ Holy shit,” he groans as my lips tentatively wrap around him, fingers tangling in my hair and tugging at it when I experimentally slide him in, cheeks hollowing. “Fuck, you’re so perfect like this,” he compliments, hand twitching on my scalp, stopping himself from pushing my head further down.

“ Your pretty little mouth around me is pure Heaven, baby,” he sighs, jaw dropping, head lolling back, stroking my head in encouragement. He begins rolling his hips shallowly, the tip of his dick nudging the back of my throat. When I swallow around him, Derek lets out a loud, guttural moan in the form of my name, yanking at my hair accidentally, making me hum around him – and that’s the only thing he needs to spill down my throat.

“ Ah, baby,” he breathes out, helping me up. He locks his lips to mine in a languid kiss, making us taste each other. In between kisses, he whispers to me, “Wait for me here,” he pecks my chin. “Wear anything you want.” A kiss on my throat. “Pick something from my wardrobe.”

“ Okay,” I pant, mewling as he grips my ass, a sudden urge taking over me to bite his strong neck. A gasp rips out of his throat as I do.

“ Fuck, baby, I don’t want to leave you here,” he husks into my skin, making me tremble with the intensity of his tone. “Not yet.”

“ You have twenty more minutes,” I gasp, glancing at the clock. He growls in frustration, but after a couple moments, he takes a step back to keep himself from touching me. His eyes fall closed, and he takes a deep breath to settle himself, then makes a beeline for the bathroom.

Three minutes later, he comes back, heading towards the elevator, fully clothed, hair freshly brushed. I see him to it, only for him to kiss me goodbye before leaving.

It’s the first time since yesterday noon that I’m all alone, and it oddly feels strange. Leaning against the closed elevator doors with my back, I grab the collar of his shirt that I’m wearing and take a deep breath, his musky scent engulfing my nose. My eyes flutter closed, and a small smile tugs at my lips in content, getting lost in the peaceful serenity that encompasses me.

After a while, I go to the kitchen, blushing and grinning stupidly as memories of what we did not ten minutes ago coming back to me. I search for a cookbook to decide what to make for Derek by the time he comes back, simultaneously checking the contents of the fridge. I opt to make chicken breast with rice, and I prepare everything.

I’m in the middle of spicing the meat that I sliced when my phone rings, signing a new message. I’m actually surprised that it hasn’t petered yet, but I nonetheless go on a pursuit to find it. It’s still in my bag.

_Where are you?_

I bite my lip, then I shrug, mumbling ‘screw it’, and dialling her. If anyone, Lydia I can definitely trust.

“ Are you with Derek right now?” is what she begins with.

“ What –?” I can’t do anything but gape with wide eyes. “How –?” I can practically  _ hear _ her smirk.

“ I knew it,” she declares triumphantly. “By the way the red mark on his neck was a pretty obvious give-away. Add the fact that you’re absent after lusting after him for weeks and –”

“ Hey!” I exclaim, face red as a tomato.

“–  and that equals with the two of you, minus your clothes. Besides, Derek was actually  _ smiling _ during his lecture, which he’s never done, only when you were around. I bet you’re on his mind all the time.” I can’t help but grin at that comment. “But now a lot of girls think he likes  _ them _ for smiling constantly. He’s stuck with them now and trying to get rid of them,” she informs.

“ Poor baby,” I coo, imagining the scenario. “I’ll help him out.” Lydia snickers and says, “You go, girl.”

We end the call, and I dial Derek right away. He picks up at the fourth ring.

“ I hear you have issues with some girls there and want to get away,” I start before he could say anything. “Wanna help with that?”

“ Definitely,” he answers, tone near teasing. The next time he speaks, I know it’s for the girls, not me. “I really have to go now. My boss’s just called and wants to see me.” I faintly catch as they complain or try to get him to stay, but these background noises soon die out, and the sound of a door closing echoes.

“ I made lunch,” I announce, earning a chuckle from him in return.

“ Thank you, baby,” he says. “I really have to go to the office, though. You wait for me at home.”

“ Of course,” I nod, then he says, “Good. See you then” and ends the call.

I start cooking the rice with a smile playing on my lips, and I snatch a skillet to get the chicken breasts ready as well. Since there is leftover salad from breakfast, I place that too on the table while setting it.

Then I go to his bedroom to put on the sweats I brought back yesterday, picking up our clothes from the floor where we tossed them carelessly last night. When I hear the elevator doors sliding open, I rush out with a huge, giddy smile to welcome Derek home, but my face morphs into a startled expression when I see who it is that came to visit.

He shoots me a half-smile, blue eyes giving me a thorough once-over.

“ Nice meeting you again,” Peter greets.


	9. Welcome to the Family

At first, I can’t do anything else but stare at Peter’s figure with what I think is disbelief on my face. A half-smile curls up the corner of his mouth as he takes a step closer to me. A little voice at the back of my mind is shouting at me to inch backwards, but I refrain from doing so – this is Derek’s uncle. His family. It would be stupid to act like a scared little cat around him, especially because...

Because Derek and I are going out now.

So, instead of acting rudely, I force a smile on my face and greet him, as carefree as possible. He says, “I believe we didn’t have the chance to introduce ourselves properly the last time I was here.” Peter sticks his hand out for me to shake, which I take and give it a mild, yet determined squeeze. He reciprocates it. “I’m Peter Hale.”

“ (Y/N),” I answer, nodding towards the dining-room. “I made lunch. Do you want to join us? Derek should be home soon.”

“ Clearly you were expecting him and not me,” he points out. His comment stings just a tad. Without sparing a glance at me, he walks pass me to make a beeline for Derek’s study. I follow him there, feeling awkward all of a sudden. What is he doing here anyway? And why is he rifling through Derek’s files in pursuit of something?

I can’t resist asking, “What are you looking for?” Peter doesn’t pause even for a second, just keeps pulling the drawers open and pushing them closed.

“ Erica told my secretary, Allison, that Turing has something against us. As a senior partner of the company, I cannot let him win the case.”

I immediately figure out it’s not Derek he wants to help – it’s himself and his own image, not even the company’s. Talk about genuine love and willingness to help between family members... Then it clicks.

“ Derek is a senior partner, too.”

“ I see you did your homework,” he says sarcastically.

“ I never read even one article about Derek before meeting him,” I tell Peter. I don’t want him – or anyone, for that matter – to think that I’m with Derek for the prestige that comes with being his girlfriend, his partner. If anything, I despised him for that at first, falsely thinking that he was full of himself for being successful and popular.

“ It wouldn’t be the first time for us to realise that’s a lie,” he spits back.

“ Excuse me?” I take a step closer to him, folding my arms over my chest in defence.

“ Don’t take it personally, sweetheart,” Peter dismisses me easily with a whisk of his hand between pulling two folders out of the drawer to check what their title says. “Derek hasn’t dated for a long time because all of his previous girlfriends claimed to have done the same as you. Or rather, I should probably say, ‘have  _ not _ done’,” he corrects. “Then it turned out every single woman was with him for the fame and money.”

“ I’m not here for either of those,” I say.

“ Sorry, but I’m the sceptical kind,” he says, glancing at me with his ice cold gaze. It sends a shiver down my spine in shockingly freezing jolts. “Kate said the same, and she stole nearly all of his fortune. She was his last partner, and it was over two years ago. Derek had to start over his entire life from square one.”

“ I understand that you won’t believe solely in words,” I start, earning his honest attention this time. “But I’m willing to prove you that right now, I’m standing here because I want Derek for who he  _ is _ , and not what he  _ has _ .” A slow smirk tugs at Peter’s thin lips.

“ I’m open to see a waltz that ends differently than the other ones,” he says. “But in precaution, let me take a step on the chessboard myself. You can call it an insurance, if you must,” he shrugs, taking a couple steps closer to me. I nod. “If you crush Derek in any way, either because it turns out you lied to me here, or you steal his money or any of his belongings, I’ll make sure you won’t be employed anytime soon after graduating. I know who you are, and I have the connections in the upper regions to implement it.” I feel like the air has been punched out of my lungs. “I hope we understood each other.”

I swallow as I nod wordlessly, making Peter smile kindly at me, the stark opposite of the sinister facade he had on just a second ago.

“ Great,” he practically singsongs, diving back into the intense search for that folder.

Without saying anything, I leave. I feel dizzy all of a sudden, I feel like puking, I feel  _ guilty _ – why do I feel guilty for merely  _ being here _ ? I would never have thought in my life that Derek had to build up his life and career  _ twice _ . How strong a willpower does one require to do that? How much determination, work, and sleepless nights did it cost him? How he must have had struggled with depression at the time. How he must have trust issues now.

Does he really trust me in the first place?

When I’m crossing the hall for the kitchen, the elevator doors slide open again, revealing Derek standing there, briefcase in one hand, the other fixing his tie, black trench coat sparkling with tiny diamonds of raindrops. I didn’t even realise it started raining.

Derek enters the penthouse with a wide, blissful grin adorning his chiselled features, lets the briefcase fall to the floor to cup my cheeks in both of his calloused palms, but before he could kiss me, I stop him with hands on his chest. He looks hurt, and lets go of me, understanding that I need space, asking me quietly, “What’s the matter?”

Peter beats me to answering; he emerges from the aisle that leads to Derek’s study, and in a fraction of a second, Derek’s expression hardens.

“ Peter,” he grits out, clearly not happy to see his uncle here.

“ Hello, Derek,” Peter greets him.

The feeling of being unnecessary and being at the wrong place starts taking over me like a dark haze, until it’s chased away by Derek as he grabs the small of my back and pulls me flush to his chest protectively, gaze never wavering away from Peter’s.

“ What were you two talking about?”

“ She just invited me to join you two for lunch,” Peter lies easily. Of course it comes naturally to him. Derek’s fingers flex around me, balling up a fistful of his T-shirt I’m wearing.

“ What are you doing here, anyway?” Derek keeps asking, tightening his hold around me. My eyes fall closed and I inhale his scent deeply, allowing it to calm me down. Right here in his arms, I feel like I’m finally home after a long time. Slowly, my arms snake around his torso under his wet coat, hugging him to myself. Since I have my ear over his heart, I can hear as the bundle of muscles switches to a faster rhythm in his ribcage.

“ I want to help you with Turing,” Peter replies.

“ If you’d excuse us,” Derek says pointedly. His tone makes it obvious that he couldn’t care less about Peter at the moment. His uncle doesn’t say anything, just walks away, presumably to the dining-room to wait for us there. As soon as we’re alone, Derek reciprocates my hug, albeit his embrace is stronger than mine. “I missed you,” he whispers into my hair, smoothing his palm over the strands.

“ I missed you, too,” I assure him. He pulls away from me by a few inches to cup my cheek in his hand and reel me in for a kiss – I don’t stop him this time. It doesn’t take long, five or six seconds at most, before Derek starts kissing me with more fervour, licking my bottom lip to ask for entrance, which I give to him after a brief consideration, opting to ignore Peter’s presence. His tongue massages mine alluringly, making me gasp into his mouth, him holding the back of my head and other hand travelling down along my spine to settle on the small of my back. “I wish we were all alone,” he croaks out, voice barely above a whisper. I mewl at the thought of it, nodding to him to sign him I want that, too.

“ Change,” I say. “Then come and eat.”

Derek chuckles, “Okay, baby.” He kisses my forehead before heading to his bedroom. He doesn’t close the door, and through the crack, I can see him undressing, and for the first time, I notice the tattoo between his shoulder blades. When he pulls on a pair of sweatpants, I shake myself awake and migrate to the kitchen to take the food to the dining-room. I take two turns with them, and by the time I’m there for the second time, Derek is seated at the table, too.

“ So you said you wanted to help me with Turing,” Derek starts, looking at Peter, who nods. For the time being, everyone puts food on their plates.

“ I heard he pulled some evidence off the cuff,” he says, disdain seeping his words. “I have no idea what he’d found.”

“ Neither do I,” Derek says. “Everything was checked, and after Isaac, I went through the file thoroughly, too.”

“ Do we at least know what the girl is called in the pictures you told me about? She could be the only help we have left to defeat Turing.”

The air freezes in the room momentarily. Derek’s eyes unconsciously find me, and Peter puts the pieces together instantly. His blue gaze settles on me. “Oh? It’s (Y/N)?” Peter then looks at his nephew, telling him, “I hope you know she isn’t supposed to be here. If anyone finds out about you two –”

“ I know,” Derek cuts him off. “I’m aware, and I’m careful.”

“ Derek, if you screw this up, the entire company could be put to shame. Victoria will kill you if she finds out that you slept with one of our clients of an ongoing case.”

“ I know!” he exclaims angrily, accompanied with a slashing motion of his hand. “Look, I know what I got myself into, but it happened before I got to know the name of the girl in the pictures. I’m not backing off now, and I’m definitely not leaving (Y/N).”

Peter locks gazes with me, intensity and intent gleaming in his irises. I know what he wants to convey to me –  _ I _ should be the one to leave. However, it doesn’t slip over Derek’s attention, and he snaps at his uncle furiously, “Don’t you dare persecute her. (Y/N) and I are together, and no fucking case will change that. If she’s not here without her notifying me beforehand, I will consider it your workings, Peter. And when that happens, you’re done,” he threatens. “Are we clear,” he asks, eyes blazing with rage and chest heaving.

“ As the Sun,” Peter smiles at him mockingly, mumbling under his breath, “I can’t believe you’re willing to risk your career for a girl.”

“ She’s precious to me,” says Derek confidently without thinking. My face heats up in the wake of his words. “She loves  _ me _ ,” he stresses. Peter rolls his eyes.

“ Or she’s just a better actress than the others were,” he shrugs. Derek hits the table with his fist harshly.

“ Get out,” he snarls, tone low and barely audible. I don’t think I’ve ever seen Derek so raving. He and Peter stand at the same time, and he sees his uncle to the exit. Faintly I can catch him asking, “Did you say anything to her?”

Peter’s deny is followed by a loud knock as Derek shoves him against the wall, hands fisting the lapel of Peter’s suit. “First you come here without telling me about it, then you threaten my girlfriend, and openly want to get rid of her right in front of me. Who the fuck do you think you are?” he hisses. Without a second thought, I dash out to them to try and pry Derek’s hands off of his uncle.

“ Derek!” I call out his name, fingers attempting to uncurl his from around the material. “Derek, let him go!” He stares at Peter for a couple more seconds, jaw clenched and nostrils flared, before taking his hands away, only to take mine in his.

“ What did you tell her?” he asks again. Peter patiently takes his time to adjust his outfit to neatly fit his figure once more, not at all rushing to offer an answer.

“ I told her not to be the same as the whores you dated before,” he responds.

“ (Y/N) hated me at first,” Derek says, squeezing my hand in his hold meekly. “It wasn’t hard to figure out. Her attitude changed after she realised I’m not who she believed me to be.” He exchanges a long look with Peter, none of them breaking eye contact. “I’m wary now. I know the red flags. And trust me, no one has loved me as genuinely as this girl does.”

Peter exhales a deep, silent breath. “For your own sake, I hope you’re not misreading the situation this time.” Derek’s hand lets go of me to settle on my hip and pull me to him before reassuring his uncle, “I’m not. But even if I were, I would be willing to take the risk for her.”

Peter snickers, and suddenly it feels like the heavy atmosphere was broken. “Okay, I have to admit, your previous women never took the time to take care of you, let alone cook for you.”

“ Come back when you have anything new to say about Turing,” Derek instructs, then waves to Peter to shoo him into the elevator. Surprisingly enough, he does as his nephew told him, and when the metal doors slide closed, I turn to Derek without missing a beat, babbling, “I’m not acting, I need you to know that I –”

“ Shh, baby,” he soothes, putting his index finger on my lips. “I know,” he murmurs before kissing me languidly, affectionately, combing through my hair lovingly. He doesn’t cease to settle me again.


	10. Office

“ I want you to wear blue in the court,” Derek says. Before I could ask him about the whys of it, he continues in his business tone that I wouldn’t have thought would be directed at me at any time, “It evokes sympathy in the jury towards you. We want them to listen to you more, and judge according to what  _ you _ say, not Matt.”

I’m seated on the couch in his study, with him pacing the room, telling me what to do and how to behave, what to wear and what to say during the hearing, cluing me in about the system and how it’s going to be held in crucifying detail – my head hurts with the gargantuan amount of information Derek is expecting me to remember upon hearing merely  _ once _ . I’m following his figure with my gaze nonetheless, craning my neck as he’s commuting in front of me, counting everything to me, who’s doing her best to take note of his words and to carve it into my memory like a sponge sucks up the moisture in its proximity. Peter arrived a while ago, and I can feel his pungent, pivoting gaze on me the entire time, however, I refrain from reciprocating it, from looking back into those frost-kissed eyes, instead focus all of my nerves on his nephew.

I’m fidgeting in my seat; I’d lie if I said that Peter’s presence isn’t bothering me at all. Especially because I can feel his icy sight boring into my skin, burning two aching holes into it, igniting a fire inside me that is can combust everything – all this done by his hatred and the fact that he despises me on end. I know this despite Derek assured me that Peter won’t be an issue anymore. I’m not stupid, I’m aware what it’s like when you’re forgiven and when you’re still held a grudge against. A shiver runs down my spine.

I try to concentrate on Derek instead; on the way he moves, on his scent that engulfs me as it envelops me, wafting upwards to my nostrils from his oversized sweatshirt I’m wearing, on the sweetly deep lilt his voice as he’s talking to me, and on everything he has to say. The hearing is due tomorrow, and Derek had to cancel his lecture to be able to be my defence.

“ I think she’s prepared enough,” Peter chimes in out of the blue. “If you give any more instructions to her, you could might as well tell her what to say tomorrow word by word. Even my head hurts now. You took responsibility for her, you took her case – now either this way or that,  _ win it _ .” He stands then, and adjusts his suit on himself after buttoning it closed, all the while giving Derek a meaningful look, as though asking him without words whether he understood the orders or not. What shocks me besides the fact that Derek isn’t the type to take orders from anyone, is that the order was given to him by his  _ family _ .

“ I know,” Derek says, loosening his tie around his neck with a swift motion, like he wants to put himself at ease with that gesture in the suffocating atmosphere. In a morbid way, the knowledge that I’m not the only one nearly choking here calms me down. “And I’m going to win the case. I have a plan.”

“ For your sake, I hope it’s a good one,” Peter sneers before taking off towards the elevator in his characteristic, sophisticated gait. I can clearly see as tension seeps out of Derek’s frame as soon as his uncle proceeds to leave. While Derek sees his family out, I stay seated on the couch instead of following them, revelling in the feel of the soft texture of Derek’s clothes against my skin, eyes falling closed on their own accord and mouth curling up in a soft smile – his presence never ceases to indulge me.

“ What are you grinning at?” he asks when he’s back, tone just this side of teasing.

When I lock gazes with him, I can see his mossy eyes, a playful sparkle shining in them as he’s leaning against the door frame with his shoulder, arms crossed over his chest, biceps bulging under the soft texture of his thin clothes. I giggle, then stand to approach him – his eyes never waver away from me even for a second, following each of my movements with that forest-like freshness they always convey. The closer I get to him, the wider his smile gets, and once I’m directly in front of him, his grin could even put the Cheshire Cat to shame. I reach up to lay my arms over his shoulders, standing on my tiptoes to be able to kiss him, inhaling, letting the cedar woodsy scent of his to engulf my senses, mesmerise me with that sparkle of lemongrass mixed in it.

He willingly ducks his head down to mirror my intentions, arms folding around the small of my back to pull me flush to his body, hot tongue instantly lavishing over my bottom lip to ask for entrance. I opt to deny it from him just to tease him, to which his response is to push me against the wall, hard enough to make my lips part on a soft sigh, and that’s all it takes for him to make me taste him in my mouth.

We still can’t get enough of each other. Apparently no matter how much time passes by, that won’t change between us. We will be drawn to each other like a moth to a flame forever.

After a couple seconds of kissing, Derek suddenly hoists me up with two firm palms planted under my thighs and proceeds to carry me to his bedroom, whereas I immediately start to undo his tie and the buttons on his vest and shirt. We fall into bed in no time, undressing each other, garments falling haphazardly on the floor, both of us impatient to feel the other skin on skin.

. o O o .

Hours later, we’re laying next to each other on the mattress – I’m curled into his side, and his thumb is brushing my skin with undeniable affection. He plants a kiss on my forehead from time to time as we remain in accompanying silence. Derek deliberately stopped marking me on my neck days ago to make sure I’m presentable for the jury and appear as the most innocent flower in the world.

“ We need to go to my office today,” Derek murmurs into my temple in tow, his hot breath making my entire being shiver warmly for these being the first spoken words in our intimate bubble in a long while. I nod, mumbling an ‘okay’ to him as I prop myself on my elbow, looking down at him with a loving, gentle smile. My hand moves to his damp forehead to push his ebony spikes away from where it’s stuck to his tanned skin. He reaches up to sweep my stands out of my face, too, broad palm smoothing to cup my cheek, holding my head meekly. We convey our affection to each other so perfectly without words – words always fail us, but body language never can. Most of the time, you can say so much more with your gestures; more, because there are things you can’t express vocally, for words will keep failing you over and over again, regardless of how hard you’re trying.

“ You’re beautiful,” he states, eyes sparkling with happiness as they’re roaming my face. My cheeks heat up in the wake of his words, but it only makes his smile fonder than before. I hope the one on my lips looks at least that loving, if not more.

“ You are, too,” I tell him, ducking down to kiss his chest, revelling in these personal minutes that are shared between the two of us only. I couldn’t be happier to know that this gorgeous man belongs to  _ me _ , of all people. A month ago, if someone told me that I was going to be the partner of such an astonishing male, I would have laughed them right across their eyes.

But here I am.

“ C’mere,” he says, low voice barely above a whisper as he reels me in for a languid, passionate kiss, his other hand travelling down my back to stroke my waist, indulging me. To return the treatment, I wrap my leg around his and massage his pectoral, making his lips curl up against mine, muscles under my fingertips quivering at the feathery touch.

“ Can’t we just stay in bed the entire day?” I ask, doodling over his ribcage. Derek shakes his head with a grin, folding his hands behind his head to pillow it, letting me do my small play of drawing unavailable figures on him.

“ I promise you to have a day with you that we spend with each other in bed as soon as possible,” he says genuinely. “But for now, let’s just concentrate on the task at hand.”

I nod in understanding, only to wink at him a second later and slide my hand down his abs teasingly, but never quite going too far. “I could think about other things at hand,” I comment suggestively, and he must have caught up on my hint because the next moment, Derek laughs wholeheartedly – the carefree sound of it lifts my spirits and entices a chuckle from me, too. He whispers into my ear playfully, “I have a feeling we should be going before you coax me into another round.”

“ Well, we have to take a bath before leaving anyway,” I shrug, slowly pushing myself off of him, like a lazy kitten would do. “You can never know what happens if the two of us were to go there together.”

“ Oh, God, I should start praying to be able to keep up with you,” he snickers, following me by sitting up, immediately snaking his arms around my waist to pull me closer to himself. In return, I fold my arms around his neck, and rub the tips of our noses together playfully.

“ Thought this was what you wanted,” I say, innocently batting my eyelashes and tilting my head to the side. He rolls his eyes fondly, responding, “It  _ is _ exactly what I want, just not when I don’t have a day to keep pleasing you.”

“ I can assure you I want to return it just as much,” I tell him, pushing myself off of the bed to make a beeline to the bathroom. Derek follows me not soon after, calloused palms covering my hips as he stands behind me under the sprinkling water, leaving a kiss on the side of my neck before we begin our leisure work of washing each other bodies.

. o O o .

Derek takes me to the company where he works. It’s a tall, yet thin building; elegant, like the employees that work there I suppose look like. Seemingly there isn’t an ounce of matter involved in it apart from glass, so the entire building reflects the sunlight back and scatters it all over beautifully. Upon entering, Derek checks in via showing a card to the security guard, then he leads me to the elevator. He has a businesslike facade on to conceal our underlying relationship; outwardly, he shows pride and confidence, but nothing else. Once in the elevator, when we’re on our own for a handful of stolen seconds, he informs me, tone just this side of distant, “I took you here myself because it’s near impossible to get through the security otherwise. We have pretty strict rules here, if I could say.”

When we arrive with a soft  _ ding _ , he gestures to the left, other hand finding the small of my back momentarily. I know he did that out of chivalry in this situation, but it still leaves me wanting his touch back so bad; it keeps lingering on my skin relentlessly, evoking memories within. Following his lead, we approach a spacious office with a table in front of it, a blonde girl typing away on her computer in an impossibly fast pace.

“ Erica,” Derek greets her. I realise that this is his secretary to whom he was talking through the phone numerous times.

“ Hiya Derek,” she grins, her eyes instantly landing on me. It makes me a tad uncomfortable, albeit I couldn’t tell why. Maybe because it makes me feel like our biggest secret has been unveiled? Are there even any secrets between Derek and Erica?

“ This is (Y/N),” he informs, and Erica nods, adding, “Isaac told me to expect you to bring her here soon.”

“ Don’t let anyone in my office until I open my door,” Derek instructs, and with that, he opens the glass door for me to let me go in first. It has ‘Derek Hale’ written on it with silver letters, and under that, ‘Senior Partner’. It is only now that the majority of this entire situation is dawning on me – not just my boyfriend’s status, but also the severity of the slice of the cake where the law is involved, too.

His office is placed at the corner of the building, hence two of the walls are windows. The carpet is a dark grey colour, and there’s a desk standing to the left, made out of wenge wood. A black Dell laptop is sitting on its surface, a couple papers placed neatly on the edge. Along the wall to the right, a shelf stretches, covering the entirety of the wall. There are numerous books on it – only some of them related to law – and I notice a couple baseballs, all of them having an autograph on them by famous players. In the middle of the office, there’s a black leather sofa and an armchair, framing a glass coffee table – it isn’t a difficult leap to figure out that there is where Derek usually has the talk with his clients.

Derek ushers me to sit on the couch, whereas he takes the armchair, his back facing the entrance. As he’s sitting down, he doesn’t fail to unbutton his suit, revealing the vest he has underneath. As for me, I need to pause for a moment to take it all in – the lush leather I’m sinking into, the scent floating about in the office; completely Derek’s with just an edge of paper coming from the books, the picturesque view that the windows are showing; more of the sky and the panorama than the city itself, and the entire place’s atmosphere. It is all so overwhelming, and it inevitably reminds me of Derek’s strong masculinity, I don’t know why, however.

“ To be honest, I had to drag you here to make it seem official. I’m supposed to give you instructions here, but we’ve already gone through my expectations of your behaviour,” he clues me in finally. I nod, then he tells me to act as though I were in front of the judge and jury now and state my testimony – this is like the penultimate trial before the actual play in the theatre. Derek wants me to convince him of my acting skills. I start, and for the time being, Derek is taking notes.

He has me to repeat my speech a lot of times in a row, always telling me where I need to change my attitude, my tone, or my expression. He even tries to mimic what he’s talking about to demonstrate what he expects to see from me, gesturing with his hands, still holding the pen, and the notepad resting in his lap, long forgotten.

Derek is interrupted mid-sentence when suddenly the door is pushed open, and we both perk up from our job, turning to look at whoever chimed in. An attractive woman entered Derek’s office, and when I glance at Erica with an expression I think shows fright, she shrugs to convey to her boss she couldn’t stop her. Derek lifts his gaze at the newcomer; apparently he’s nonchalant, and couldn’t care less about her presence at the moment.

“ What do you want, Anette?” he asks.

“ I need you to help me with this,” she replies, approaching Derek, proceeding to hand him the papers that she has clutched to her chest. The stifled clicks of her high-heels reverberate all over my eardrums, turning more and more sinister as she’s getting cloer and closer to Derek. The man shakes his head, “I’m busy. Erica must have told you so, too. I have my own cases to work on, and I’m currently busy, as you can see.” This is when her eyes find me for the first time, disdain gleaming in her eyes. Is she trying to make me feel like I wasn’t even worth her attention at all? Like she didn’t notice me until now because I was outshined by Derek’s mere existence?

“ I just need you for a couple minutes, Mr. Hale,” she pushes, switching to a pleading tone. She even bats her eyelashes a couple times, just for the full effect. Bile starts welling up in my gullet, and I have to swallow against it so that I won’t find myself spitting her right across her face with it in a weaker moment of mine. Why the Hell is she  _ flirting _ with Derek? “My office is near yours, it would take no more than five minutes.” She smooths her hand on Derek’s shoulder, but I can tell he wants to jerk away from her touch. It makes me nauseas to see her all over him, looking at him as though she wanted to devour him with her bare  _ sight _ , like Derek was a piece of meat or a prize she can win over. I’m this close to shoving her hands away and show her that this astonishing man in the office belongs to me, but I cannot do that – not yet.

Thankfully, Derek has the situation under control – like any other times. “I’ll have Erica give you a call once I’m free again. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a lot to talk about with my  _ client _ for tomorrow’s hearing.” Christine looks at me then, barely disguising her disapproval of me, before spinning around to leave finally, obviously sulking all the way. As soon as the glass door is closed and we’re alone again, Derek immediately proceeds to apologise, “I’m sorry about her. She’s stubborn when it comes to something she wants.”

“ Clearly,” I say. When I lift my eyes up from the coffee table in front of us, and Derek mouths to me, promising sweetly, ‘I’m making it up to you’ is the second I realise that my tone must have been harsher and colder than I intended it to be, squeezing more into that one little word than I wanted to. I shake my head dismissively, telling him without words, ‘It’s not necessary’. A faint gleam of worry sparkles in his mossy eyes, so I send a curt, yet reassuring smile to him, which apparently helps him settle. We fall back into our work then, to finish preparing me for tomorrow.


	11. Win or Die

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Life came up, so I was awfully late with my stories everywhere. But it's here now :)

A loud thud reverberates around in the huge room, so authoritative that the low buzzing of hushed conversations die out, and everyone who has been standing goes to find their seats and take them. My heart is beating furiously fast in my gullet, and I can’t help my leg as it keeps bouncing against the ground—I had slipped my foot out of the high-heel, so that it won’t be audible to the other people in the court. My hands are squeezed between my thighs, and I’m chewing my lower lip on end. From the corner of my eye, I can see Derek’s profile, sitting with his back straight, shoulders squared, like the attorney that came to win. He radiates confidence and pride so intensely, it surprises me that it hasn’t affected me yet.

Then my eyes wander further than him—wander to the other table where Matt and Turing are sat. Like Derek, they are both listening to the judge’s summary about the case and what has happened so far; it makes me the only one not giving a fudge about the man’s speech. The man, who looks so strict he makes me want to wince and flee. Albeit Derek told me yesterday that we have luck with the judge, for him not maintaining a nice, personal connection with either of the lawyers, I’m still on edge. However, I keep reminding myself that no matter what, I can at least keep holding on to this tiny fact—this can give me a chance to convince the judge to decide for our sake with just a touch of act, pulling the hidden, deeply buried side of me that hasn’t shown her face in my life before; the damsel in distress.

I just have to find the perfect amount of the lost little desperate girl, and we should be fine. Derek did his best to prepare me for that moment, and Peter is soon to come, so I have to prove him wrong about me. I need him to know that I love Derek, and I would do anything for him—even romanticising a little in my testimony. The presence of Lydia and Allison helps a little, too.

When Derek opens the folder in front of him, spreading the papers on the table, I realise that the judge is almost done with his talk, so I force myself to leave the realm of my mind to focus my attention on the task at hand. I’ve never been good at marketing myself, nor persuading huge amounts of people, but when I gave voice to this worry of mine, Derek simply told me it should be okay, because half of the jury was handpicked out by him personally, and they will most likely choose to support me, not Matt.

The judge announces that it’s time for the plaintiff to share, and I have to look to my right where Derek is still sitting, casting a beaming smile at me so reassuring that my knees nearly give out. I’m not sure if the grin I send him back is a grin at all, or just a nervous twitch of the corner of my mouth that conveys clearly how scared I am. I approach the privileged seat, extremely self-conscious and aware of my high-heels clicking loudly on the marble floor, fingers constantly cracking my knuckles as I risk a quick glance at the jury—mostly men, which Derek told me was because men’s natural instinct is to protect what they have developed a liking to. The majority of the women were also abused, one was even involved in a rape a couple years ago. Derek really did prepare for this; to him, this is practically a war that he has to win, and for that, he chose the best soldiers to aid his plan.

The judge has me swear with my hand rested on the Bible that I will not lie during my testimony nor when the defendant’s attorney is asking me questions, then I start. I start with a deep breath and closing my eyes. I remind myself that I must be the helpless victim to everyone here.

“ I have known Matt for a long while,” I state, sinking a nail into the flesh of my palm, hoping that the sting will help me ease my nerves; the sharp sensation is tickling my nape. “We were close friends, and I had no idea he was taking photos of me without my knowledge. I also didn’t know about him wishing to have something more with me. He never told me about how attracted he was to me. This is why, when I first heard about the photoshopped pictures, I was shocked, disappointed and scared.” I look at the jury before going on. “I felt exposed.” I avert my gaze to continue looking at the people sitting in the rows in the back. “I felt betrayed, and the vulnerability scared me;  _ I lost a friend _ ,” I stress. “I’ve always had a hardship trusting people, but I thought Matt would be different. But I was proven wrong, and it made me unsure about my ability of telling trustworthy and untrustworthy people apart. It made me feel like I personally gave way to the burglar into my home.”

The judge makes a disapproving face which I hope is because he has antipathy towards Matt now. He looks at Turing, tells him he is now allowed to ask me questions, and the attorney is already on his feet, strolling towards me with a smug smirk on his lips. He reminds me of a python in the process of circling its victim.

“ You stated that you didn’t know about the pictures. So who told you about them?”

“ Mr. Hale and Mr. Lahey had been investigating to figure out the identity of the girl in the pictures. They found out it was me, and they informed me about what Matt had been doing,” I answer. For a second, I glance at Derek, who nods with a motion so tiny I doubt anyone else noticed it besides me.

“ Did they know you two were friends?”

“ No.”

“ Where did you think Matt has gone when he wasn’t with you?”

“ He said he was going to travel back to visit his parents for some family business, that’s why I shouldn’t be expecting to see him for a while.”

“ Here you stated you had a great people skill... so how come you’ve never noticed he was stalking you? Couldn’t it be because you weren’t paying attention enough? Because you weren’t as great a friend as you think and he felt like he needed to bridge the distance that you put between you two?”

“ Irrelevant,” Derek speaks up out of the blue, bolting up from where he was sitting. His eyes are burning with protective fury as he goes on, “This is personal, and is implying that my protegee wanted to be the victim of a stalker.”

The judge doesn’t take long to decide. He nods curtly to Derek to go on.

“ We are discussing stalker behaviour, and it isn’t related to the victim’s attitude. Also, in the pictures, it is clearly obvious that the defendant wasn’t just ‘bridging some distance’ between him and a friend who he felt like departed,” he says, skimming through the printouts of the photos to search for one that evidences his statement. Upon finding it, he strides over to the judge to show it to him. “My protegee told me they were close. I also have other people to prove that, if your Honour wishes to listen to their testimonies, too.”

The judge dismisses his offer by pushing the picture to the side of his desk and shaking his head no. “There’s no need to do that. The intent was clearly not the wish to bring two people closer again.” The faintest shadows of a smug half-smile appears on Derek’s lips, but it’s gone as fast as it came. It helps me calm down.

“ Now comes the defendant’s testimony,” the judge announces, and I switch places with Matt. When I peek at the jury, I can see pitiful looks, understanding, sympathy and protectiveness on their faces, all of these emotions directed at me.

“ As y/n said, we were indeed friends. However, I didn’t have the feeling of us growing apart; I edited the photos for a bet,” he says. When Derek stiffens next to me, the nervousness seeps back into my bones in a fraction of a second. He leans closer to me so that he can whisper to me without anyone else hearing what he tells me, “This is the idea that Erica told me about. The one Turing pulled out of thin air.”

Matt continues, “I had no intentions of doing anything that the photos depict. I just needed money, and studying at a university isn’t exactly easy with a flimsy job at a CD shop.”

Some members of the jury start whispering to each other, which makes me even more worried. Are they ditching their opinion for Matt’s sake? Are they switching sides now, after a potential lie? What will Derek do now? When Turing speaks up, informing everyone that he has the guy here who started the bet, Derek’s hand clenches into a fist so tight, a nerve is jumping under his skin that has gone white under the force of his pure anger. I need to swallow to get rid of the lump that’s choking me. Peter must be here by now—must have arrived during my turn to talk—I just didn’t pay attention to him, for having been too preoccupied with persuading the judge and the jury of my right.

When, after asking Derek whether he had any questions to the defendant and he said no, the judge allows the defence to bring their other witness to the spotlight, I know for sure that Derek is going to lose. He’s already acting like the defeated party, leaving me with no hope and a bitter taste in my mouth—must be bile, if the soft biting of it is anything to go by.

The guy introduces himself to us, then explains he has this hobby of betting people for money. Of course, the more inappropriate the dare is, the more money the person is going to be rewarded. His testimony is brief, but pithy and convincing.

This time, though, Derek takes the opportunity to question to the guy.

“ Patrick, you said you dare not only Matt, but other people, too,” he starts, to which Patrick nods in assurance. “Where do you get all that money from? I assume it’s not just ten bucks you give to corrupt people.”

“ My parents are entrepreneurs,” he shrugs casually, like he has no care in the world. “They are self-employed and have a lot of money. They give me some. Having an own business of bets is better than spending that money on drugs, isn’t it?”

“ Meaning you think it’s okay to stalk others?”

“ If they are willing to do that for the money, then who cares?” I notice Turing motioning to him to take back the edge of his answers to appear more prepossessing to the jury. I’m getting sicker by the minute.

“ How did Matt and you find each other?” Derek goes on.

“ It was me to approach him at first. It’s always easy to find clients at crappy places, like the CD shop he was employed in. It’s easy; I just go inside, start a conversation with people, and if I have a feeling they would be up to getting money so easily, I make an offer. I have great people skills, you see,” he grins, deliberately directing that disgusting expression to me. I glower at him, but he doesn’t even bat an eye, just looks back at Derek.

“ Do your parents know about this business you’re running?”

“ Irrelevant,” Turing chimes in, and the judge nods, telling Derek to inquire something that has to do with the case.

“ So you were saying that you have great people skills. How did you manage to convince Matt?”

“ Matt was easy. He had financial issues, you see, and I offered him help. I promised him he wouldn’t have a problem about tuition fee, at least for this semester. He agreed.”

“ What is your parents’ business about?”

“ Irrelevant,” Turing interjects again, evoking fury in me, burning inside me besides the buzzing anxiety. Why won’t he let Derek ask his questions? The judge dismisses him again.

“ How did the talk go?” 

“ Matt came to me, asked how much I’d pay, and we consented.”

Derek hums, tone at ease this time, so is his posture. He’s jovial as he says, “You just said it was you to approach him at first.”

“ That is not a question,” Turing stands again, cutting Derek off. However, this time the judge elects for Derek’s sake to go on with his interrogation. Patrick is visibly vibrating now; not with smug confidence that he’s been conveying, but fright that a cornered victim would express. He launches his explanation to his previous mistake.

“ I-I did approach him first, he just came back to me a while later to officially agree to my terms and give his word.”

“ But here you stated that it was an immediate, on-the-spot decision. We can check it in the record, if you must,” Derek offers suavely.

At this moment, I can’t help the smile that tugs the corners of my lips widely apart, so I settle for tilting my head forwards to hide it as best as I can. Derek is indeed a great attorney; he recognised that Patrick was giving a fake testimony, and he made it his purpose to catch him on a lie, which he achieved by deliberately asking questions he knew would be dismissed. This way, he was playing with Patrick’s mind, luring him into believing he sucked at his job and would therefore make Patrick think he would be easy to lie to, which is why Patrick paid less attention to what he was saying, thinking he could get away with it anyway. Derek realised that Patrick’s weakness would be his pride, and he took advantage of that knowledge.

The judge signs to us with his gavel that the hearing is done, and he shall retreat with the jury for half an hour to make a final decision. As Patrick scrambles off of the seat to approach Matt and Turing, I can see the lawyer chiding him with his bare gaze. The boy even hunches his shoulders to try to look as small as possible.

As for Derek, he returns to me with a beaming smile, winking at me playfully before jerking his head towards the exit where the people are already filing out to the hallway. He collects the printouts, arranges them back into the folder, then makes a beeline for one of the doors. I follow him, and on our way out, Lydia, Allison and Peter join us, too. Outside, I sit on the bench that’s stood along the wall, whereas the others stay stood.

“ This is already decided,” Peter states, patting his nephew’s shoulder twice with a tiny smile. That is probably the most we can expect from him, but the way Derek looks now tells me exactly how positively ruffling that sentence was to his pride. Peter turns to Lydia with his arm offered then, which the girl accepts, and he leads her away to invite her for a cup of coffee.

“ That was awesome,” Allison praises. “I have no idea how you did it. For a while I thought you were going to lose, but then you flipped it over again.”

Derek shrugs, suddenly unexpectedly shy, “It was no big deal. It’s my job to spot a liar, it’s just not explicitly included in my job description.”

Allison gives him a fond smile, then excuses herself to leave with Isaac and give us some alone time.

“ She’s right, you know,” I say, to which Derek chuckles.

“ I can’t wait to get away from the court,” he responds; I know what he means by that, and I know he can’t tell me word by word what he means, because he wouldn’t want to risk Turing hearing him over and letting him know about our relationship. He adds as he sits down next to me, “I’m tired.”

“ Yeah, me, too. Worrying consumes more energy than one would think.”

“ Agreed,” he says. Us having a small talk feels alien to me—our conversations always have a depth to them, but right here, we can’t afford the luxury of letting other people get wind of how much we actually enjoy each other’s company.

“ What do you think will happen to him?”

Derek lifts his shoulders in a slow, lazy shrug, “I don’t know for sure. It has been proven that the bet was just a fake excuse, so I wouldn’t exactly expect anything nice for him in the future.” I know this was the softer version of ‘he will probably be sentenced to jail’.

The thirty minutes pass faster than I anticipated, and in no time, we are called back to the court to hear the ultimate decision. The judge gives us another summary of what happened half an hour ago, before cutting to the chase.

“ Matt Daehler was found guilty of stalking y/n Wilson. The verdict is that Mr. Daehler must spend five years in prison. The ransom is 500,000 dollars.”

The loud smack of the gavel justifies the sentence.


End file.
